LoL Analysis: 2016 NALCS, FOX vs NRG (Week 5, Day 2)

Echo Fox have really come together around Froggen and should be a force to be reckoned with. NRG have gotten really good play from GBM and KonKwon, but teams have found a way to shut down Impact and Moon. They keep giving Impact tanky champions and I feel like they need more power from him to move into that second tier behind Immortals. And they need Altec to do more – he’s been tentative in some midgames and needs to carry when the opponent focus is on the other lanes. I feel like NRG are better but I like Echo Fox with the upset in this game.

Picks and Bans – FOX first-picked Corki, presumably for Froggen, which I love. NRG get GP, presumably for Impact, which I also love. He should be good enough to survive later and the siege from GP will scale nicely. FOX surround Froggen with Graves jungle, Janna support, and then Caitlin/Malphite. Pretty standard. NRG though got funky. They follow GP with Braum (ok), Evelyn (whoa), Lucian (ok, no Kalista), and Maokai - wait, what? This is such a weird lineup. They'll want to assassinate someone early, but Corki has good mobility with range and should not be an easy gank. Maybe focus on the duo lane? Moon will be really pressed to make something happen on Evelyn early. 

28:15 – Moon does a nice dance to gank Froggen but gets only his summoner heal. Moon obviously has some practice on Evelyn but again, Corki is hard to gank. Froggen gets first blood five minutes later by roaming on Impact, who pushed the lane. Not a big deal for Impact, but Froggen is the carry. Echo Fox got a big jungle start from Hard – that’s the weakness of Evelyn. That start and superior vision allowed FOX to take a lot of health off the mid turret and roam through the NRG jungle.

40:50 – NRG are tunneling on the turret. They just saw FOX retreat after stealing red and know FOX are there to defend. kfo gets a massive knockup on the Malphite ult and it’s a disaster for NRG. I wrote that Altec needed to be more proactive but walking within melee range and dying before he gets any damage out is not the way to do it. And NRG are not tanky/strong enough to execute their siege comp.

43:30 – This is actually a good idea by Impact and Moon to flank, but kfo gets another knockup, popping Braum before KonKwon can do anything and that’s another dead Altec. Truth be told, they have such a gold lead that it doesn’t really matter. I can see why the casters criticize Impact and GBM, but Moon, Altec, and KonKwon have all been terrible this game.

There were more fights in this game but Echo Fox were just laughably overpowered and GBM could never chain together his ult with Moon’s or catch anyone with barrels. They were the more coordinated team and had out-performances in multiple areas. They are playing with confidence and challenging for a playoff spot and nobody outside of Immortals should want to play them right now. NRG needed Impact and GBM to carry but got poor performances from both of them and have real issues as a team. That style works in Korea but requires perfect coordination and map control. People are figuring out that they can shut down Impact and leave the duo lane alone – that’s dangerous when there are so many power picks available in this meta. They have to adapt to the faster pace of these NALCS teams or they will find themselves left in the dust.