Game of the Day: Fnatic versus Alliance

By Helmight

            It was a disappointing day for Fnatic fans. Their match against Alliance had been hotly anticipated, as a win here would tie them for first place and force a tiebreaker match between the two when playoffs arrived. Fnatic’s early aggression gave them a quick advantage, but their passive play and indecisiveness eventually let Alliance outrotate, outfight, and outplay Fnatic.

            Fnatic and Alliance played a 50 minute game, but in truth the match was over before then. Fnatic had been slowly stumbling over the course of the game and made a series of poor decisions that allowed Alliance to pull back into the game. Suddenly at a disadvantage, Fnatic then reverted back to their infamously passive play from their 8-game losing streak last split. With their opponents too scared to fight, Alliance applied pressure everywhere they could, taking towers and dragons with ease. After Alliance took one inhibitor and made to pressure another, Fnatic finally tried to fight them off. By this point though, Fnatic had forfeited a huge amount of gold and the fight went immediately south for them. With most of their opponents dead, it was a simple matter for Alliance to shove onto the Nexus and end the game.

            Fnatic’s play early on was brilliant. An early five-man invasion cost Shook his Flash and forced him to start jungling at his blue buff – then, a couple minutes later, Fnatic returned and stole his red buff right as he tried to secure it. Another pair of Flashes were burned by Alliance following the skirmish, giving Fnatic a huge early-game lead. Shifting Rekkles and YellOwStaR into the top lane against Wickd also proved to be a good move. With Nyph and Shook being forced to stay with Wickd, sOAZ was able to soak experience and farm in relative comfort down in the bottom lane. With early rotations coming out from YellOwStaR and Cyanide, Fnatic pressured Alliance’s lanes all across the board.

            However, Fnatic seemed to lose steam after the first few minutes of the game and their calculated aggression slowly turned risky. Instead of securing uncontested objectives, Fnatic more often than not traded towers with Alliance – then found themselves in a bad position and gave up even more afterwards. Alliance also had much better dragon control, securing five out of six for the game. With their early advantages dwindling away to nothing, Fnatic decided to stop pressuring Alliance and play more defensively. It was a move that Alliance punished to the utmost, and one that eventually proved fatal for Fnatic. 

Fnatic (L)				Alliance (W)
Kills	Turrets	Gold		Kills	Turrets			Gold
3	7	77.5k		6	10			86.7k
Lineup
Position	Player	Champion	K/D/A	Position		Player			Champion	K/D/A
Top	sOAZ	Gragas	1/1/1	Top	Wickd				Irelia	1/2/2
Jungle	Cyanide	Jarvan IV	0/2/2	Jungle	Shook				Riven	2/0/4
Mid	xPeke	Ziggs	0/2/2	Mid	Froggen				Orianna	0/1/6
ADC	Rekkles	Jinx	1/1/2	ADC	Tabzz				Kog’Maw	3/0/3
Support	YellOwStaR	Thresh	1/0/1	Support	Nyph				Morgana	0/0/6
Bans
Lee Sin	Xerath	Twisted Fate		Kassadin			Evelynn	Syndra

 

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