League of Legends LCS draft or execution: An analysis of TSM vs. Echo Fox

Game 3

Echo Fox’s draft and bans

After Jarvan IV has looked bad and had little impact for both teams in Games 1 and 2, Echo Fox still chose to first pick the champion for Game 3. An important part of the strategy to win a series in League of Legends is to adapt to the in-series metagame and adjusting your priority on champions as the series goes on. Echo really dropped the ball here.

Echo Fox’s team comp ended up being Aatrox, Jarvan IV, Swain, Kogmaw and Braum. This is a team-fighting composition that comes online a little earlier in the game, by sacrificing some of their late-game threat by drafting a mid laner that comes online earlier. I am fine with Echo Fox’s picks, but I do believe they dropped the ball with their bans.

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Despite getting steamrolled last game, Echo Fox did not change a single one of their first rotation bans. The only champion Echo Fox banned from the previous game was Kalista in the 2nd rotation of bans. They gave TSM three of the champions they just smashed Echo Fox with and TSM ended up with the same team composition they had last game.

Giving your opponent the same team composition they just stomped you with is super cocky. Also, Echo Fox chose the Braum over the Tahm Kench yet again despite TSM locking in a dive composition with their first two picks.

TSM’s draft

TSM did their best to replicate the previous draft that went so well for them. TSM ended up with another very potent dive/team fight composition with Hecarim, Rek’sai, Lissandra, Kaisa, and Galio.

With mulitple ways to setup the Galio ultimate, this team composition goes very well together. Kaisa even fits in well with the team composition as she is able to dash into the back-line and follow up off of the teams strong engage.

Comparing the two drafts

Echo Fox got counter picked in the top lane but managed to trade for a counter pick the mid lane. The bot lane is similar to the last game. They have lane pressure until TSM’s bot lane get their key ultimates once they hit level six. Echo Fox’s draft is an improvement as they drafted one winning lane, however, when also drafting a losing jungle matchup, it does not take much to flip TSM’s losing mid lane matchup into their favor.

One really potent part of Echo Fox’s composition is that it is very difficult to team fight against Aatrox and Swain. These champions are difficult to kill, hard to run through in order to get to Echo Fox’s back line and are very good at zoning out enemy back lines.

I will note that Jarvan IV seems out of place in Echo Fox’s composition and Echo Fox’s composition, while having some synergies, lacks an identity other than they might win team fights. TSM’s team composition is trying to do one thing and go all in on it. Echo Fox will have to have good execution to win with a wonky draft against a draft that is so streamlined.

How the game played out

Similarly to Game 2, Echo Fox got smashed by TSM, with an ending kill score of TSM having 18 kills and Echo Fox having six. While Echo Fox managed to snag a few more kills this go around, the game even ended four minutes faster than the previous game. One of the big reasons the game got so out of hand was that TSM set up a camp mid lane and was able to turn what should have been an Echo Fox favored matchup into TSM’s favor.

The Hecarim counter-pick not only netted Sergen “Broken Blade” Çelik an advantage in the top lane, but also wrecked havoc in team fights. Broken Blade was able to dash past Echo Fox’s front line and in coordination with Lissandra piloted by TSM’s mid laner Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg, was able to repeatedly assassinate Echo Fox’s Kogmaw, piloted by Apollo. Due to the Swain being camped early by TSM, he was unable to really have a profound effect on team fights.

Conclusion

Echo Fox seemed like they had places to be other than playing League of Legends and picked an immobile ADC without a Tahm Kench into a TSM dive composition yet again. Then, Echo Fox took team fights they had no business taking even after being gifted an early infernal drake that they could have just sat on until their team composition could come online.

Even with a bad draft yet again out of Echo Fox, this still did not explain a kill score of 18-6. The poor execution from Swain in the laning phase, netting TSM advantages and gold they had no right to allowed TSM to cruise through this game. The final verdict is that both Echo Fox’s draft and execution played major roles in why they lost this game.