Game of the Day: Supa Hot Crew vs Gambit Gaming

By Hemight

            Everyone who’s played League of Legends knows how scary a 50-minute game can be. One small slip up – a single missed skillshot, a misplaced ward, or a whiffed ulti – can result in a sudden and immediate loss. The Supa Hot Crew were brutally reminded of this today in their game against Gambit. Despite GMB gaining an advantage early, the SHC’s chaotic, splitpushing play let them draw out the game to a point where they could win fights against Gambit. Unfortunately for the Supa Hot Crew, one single mistake by Impaler and Selfie at the 50-minute mark cost them the game and allowed Gambit to take home the victory.

            The draft phase showed the Supa Hot Crew picking an AD-heavy comp based around Selfie’s Yasuo and Mimer’s Jax, allowing them to both splitpush and teamfight effectively. Meanwhile, Gambit’s team was built solely for teamfights thanks to the AoE damage that niQ’s Karthus and Darien’s Renekton could put out. However, Gambit’s strategy would only work if they won by midgame. If the Supa Hot Crew could push the game past 40 minutes, their terrifying lategame Jax and armor penetration would be too much for Gambit to handle

            As if to keep Gambit from ramping up early, the SHC opened with an aggressive laning phase, stealing away Gambit’s blue buff and securing the first dragon. Though first blood would go over to Gambit after a three-man gank took down Selfie, the Crew’s midlaner managed to take Diamond down with him. A few minutes later, Impaler and Diamond would both head up to gank their 2v2 lane. Though niQ’s Requiem brought all three of the Crew’s members low, they still managed to take the kill on EDward and back off safely.

            Gambit was far from out of the game though. A handful of picks, in addition to some questionable decisions from Impaler and Mimer in the midlane, allowed them to secure three towers, a pair of dragons, and a 5k gold lead. With an advantage established over the SHC, Gambit began to more aggressively pressure towers, knowing that they were stronger for the moment.

            And yet, the Supa Hot Crew refused to go quietly. The waveclear of their comp allowed them to swiftly push Gambit away from any tower that they tried to pressure, while Mimer and Selfie ran interference by constantly splitpushing. Even Baron didn’t give Gambit enough of an edge to finish off the Supa Hot Crew – the threat of kaSing’s Tidal Wave made tower diving a risky proposition at best and forced them to squander most of the buff. Meanwhile, the SHC continued to chip away at Gambit’s lead, slowly shrinking their gold deficit from 5k to 4k, then to 3k. By 37 minutes into the game, it was getting difficult for Gambit to win teamfights, and they knew it.

            So, Gambit fell back to the Baron, first trying to bait the Supa Hot Crew into facechecking it to grab a pick, and then trying to burn it down before the SHC could respond. Neither strategy worked, and after a poor teamfight forced EDward to back the Crew was able to swiftly burn down Baron’s health and take the buff for themselves. Another teamfight shortly afterwards resulted in catastrophe for Gambit, as four of their members went down thanks to a great Last Breath by Selfie. The Supa Hot Crew picked up an inhibitor immediately afterwards, and while Gambit still held a slight gold lead, all of the momentum was with the Crew.

            But even in their moment of triumph, SHC stumbled. As Gambit tried to pull out of mid after a failed siege on the Supa Hot Crew’s inhibitor tower, Impaler and Selfie leapt ahead of their team to initiate a fight on Darien – one of Gambit’s tankiest members. Predictably, the fight went south for SHC and resulted in the loss of 4 team members for no kills. It was a fatal mistake that gave Gambit an opening. Shrugging off the minor damage from MrRalleZ, Gambit was able to charge down mid and take down the Nexus in a game that they otherwise should have lost. 

*Author’s note: Yerrow changed his screenname to kaSing since last week. Same guy, different name.

            SHC bans: Ziggs, Evelynn, Braum

            GMB bans: Kassadin, Kayle, Twisted Fate 

Player	Champion	K/D/A	CS
Gambit Gaming
Darien	Renekton	3/2/10	272
Diamond	Elise	6/4/12	146
niQ	Karthus	10/3/13	398
Genja	Lucian	3/3/8	410
EDward	Thresh	2/3/18	74
Supa Hot Crew
Mimer	Jax	2/3/4	297
Impaler	Jarvan IV	2/8/10	117
SELFIE	Yasuo	5/7/3	486
MrRalleZ	Corki	6/3/4	363
kaSing	Nami	0/3/11	18

      

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