LoL eSports Weekly: 2016 Spring Split highlights – week 8

We return from the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship to the five leagues as, in some cases, they wind down their Spring season before playoffs. The NA and EU LCS both have just one week left and numerous question marks remain as to which teams will ultimately make the playoffs, and as which seed, while other leagues still have weeks to go.

Here are the best moments from the last week of League of Legends eSports:

Week eight highlights

1) FOX vs. DIG – Froggen’s record-breaking farm

Farming? Really? OK, so it’s not really a highlight watching someone farm. Seeing someone achieve a total of more than seven hundred and fifty minion kills, however… is probably even less fun to watch. But still, it’s a record, and a pretty crazy one, so it’s here.

FOX Froggen’s new record of 764 Creep Score (CS) trumped the previous high of 726 from CJ Entus’ CoCo, whilst FOX’s AD Carry, Yuri, actually hit 738 in the 67-minute game against Dignitas himself. With the average Challenger-level CS hitting around 300 at 60 minutes, more than doubling that in 67 is… a lot, basically.

Unfortunately no, we didn’t edit the video for you to watch all 764 last-hits. Just be glad we didn’t make you watch it right from the start, at least.

2) FOX vs. DIG – The final five minutes

Same game, much more exciting things to watch. This time it’s an entire five minutes’ worth of madness at least, as Echo Fox and Dignitas apparently decided that, after farming up several thousand CS each, they would just go Deathmatch it out in a series of five-versus-five teamfights until someone finally won. Luckily for us, that made for some pretty special viewing.

It’s hard to really pick out a key moment – there are at least four teamfights, a Baron, and a couple of Teleports in there – but an unquestionable turning point would certainly be DIG BillyBoss’ cancelled Teleport at the 66-minute mark. His failure to save that for a better time, along with the decision of DIG Apollo to try and base race right at the end instead of recalling to defend his own, was probably the moment that swung it. Absolute madness, but brilliant viewing.

3) H2K vs. ROC – H2K Ryu and Odoamne’s outplay

This last one is a nice, neat-and-tidy piece of skill to counteract all that simultaneous madness and boredom of the Echo Fox – Dignitas game.

Thinking he’s got himself a textbook lane gank lined up perfectly, ROC Airwaks heads to mid lane with his sights on H2K Ryu. As it turns out – and any fellow junglers out there will know this feeling all too well – ROC Airwaks’ gank is swiftly turned into a counter-gank, as H2K Ryu deftly dodges his Cocoon before H2K jungler Odoamne joins the party, completing the humiliation for Airwaks.

All it needed was a “report jungler” from ROC Betsy in the midlane, and this one could have been straight out of Bronze III. Not that we’d know what that’s like, of course…

How’d they do it?

Okay, so starting with last hit number one, Froggen really times this one nicel- just kidding. Bet you found that real funny. Yes, as you expected this week’s deep-dive of explanation is going to be the individual outplay, rather than the neverending teamfights and 70-minute farm-fests of Echo Fox and friends.

Let’s go play-by-play: Mistake number one from ROC Airwaks would of course be coming in for the gank over a pink ward. He almost certainly would have seen it and decided to continue the gank anyway, but approaching without knowledge of the enemy team’s vision until you’ve already arrived is never wise, and stepping on that pink ward was probably his final chance to back out of the play before it was too late. After that, it’s really the individual skill of H2K’s Ryu and Odoamne that needs to be applauded. Ryu dodges the Cocoon from Airwaks’ Elise nicely, after baiting it out with his Corki’s Valkyrie dash. Odoamne was quick to spot the gank coming, and even quicker to Flash behind Airwaks to land the taunt – heavy crowd control that was quickly added to by Ryu’s exhaust. An agile combo from Ryu including a nicely positioned Phosphorous Bomb – after he was able to mitigate the blind from ROC Betsy by getting into close range – and that’s the kill secured.

Champ of the Week

This time, it’s that armadillo-turtle-porcupine-beyblade Pokémon – I mean champion – himself, otherwise known as Rammus. The “Armordillo,” as his epithet goes, has seen some rising popularity in recent professional play as one of the leading counters to those pesky AD Carries.

As always, that potential largely comes from his built-in kit. Rammus scales exceptionally well from building armour with his passive, Spiked Shell, granting him bonus Attack Damage as a result. Coupled with the synergy of his Puncturing Taunt, Defensive Ball Curl and an item like Thornmail, Rammus is an absolute nightmare for opposing teams reliant on auto-attacks for damage.

As we saw in the game between Roccat and H2K, ROC’s two main points of damage were auto-attacking AD champions Quinn and Kalista, with the rest of their team set up to protect those two carries. With that kind of composition showing no signs of leaving the professional scene any time soon, it’s no surprise that we’ve seen the Armour-turtle-dillo-mon come rolling into action.

Also, using Teleport, Powerball and Homeguard boots on Rammus is just really cool.

The teams and their ranks