LCS: How Bad Drafts Cost TSM Against FlyQuest
By Josh Tyler
Bot Lane Priorities
In response to the Rakan first pick, TSM answered twice with Aatrox and Aphelios and once with Aatrox and Nautilus. Theoretically, Aphelios should be a fantastic matchup into Xayah and Nautilus should accelerate the kill threat of that lane. However, TSM never took advantage of what should be a winning matchup by playing around bot lane.
Moreover, Nautilus is a champion that Biofrost does not have a lot of experience on. He has only played the pick nine times in his career (including four times in this series) and has only three wins on the champion in his career. It is also one of his lowest KDA supports in his career.
Instead, TSM would have been better served by picking the lovers duo themselves, or else giving Biofrost something he is more comfortable on like Thresh, Braum, or Tahm Kench. Pairing those with a Varus, Miss Fortune, or Ashe would have likely been the better choices. However, giving up the lover’s duo was not the biggest problem with the draft. Instead, it was their choice of bans.
Top Lane Issues
The biggest problem with giving up the lover’s duo was getting a suboptimal trade for their star player Sergen “Broken Blade” Çelik. In all four games that TSM was on red side (having picks 2 and 3), they banned Ornn. This speaks to a big problem of TSM’s that I can’t believe isn’t being talked about: their lack of desire to play Ornn (which TSM banned every game, including when they could have first-picked it on blue side).
In the regular split, Broken Blade played three games on Aatrox, losing two, and played two on Ornn, which he won both of. If they had left that ban off the table, they would have forced FlyQuest to either ban it themselves, pick it first (thus giving TSM Xayah/Rakan), or pick Rakan and give TSM Ornn. Yet for some reason, TSM was unwilling to trade the Xayah/Rakan for perhaps the highest-priority top laner in the LCS despite the fact that Broken Blade is clearly competent on the champion.
Yes, Aatrox is Broken Blade’s most-played champion in his career at 22 games, but he has played 10 games on Ornn. If TSM had allocated that Ornn ban somewhere else (I would have targetted Santorin’s jungle pool by taking away the Trundle, which he played in the first three games as well and would have been a natural counter to the Ornn) they would have forced FlyQuest into either giving up their preferred bot lane or probably the best top laner in the game.
The big problem is that picking Aatrox over-commits TSM to an early game-focused strategy that has to play through top side. While this has been TSM’s bread-and-butter throughout the split, it’s been shown to be highly risky given how poor TSM’s late game shotcalling has been. And, worst of all, Aatrox has little kill threat outside of lane if the other team has strong peel (which they do when they get Rakan).
TSM could have also taken this same tactic, just swapping Ornn for their other near-perma ban Sett, who is one of Broken Blade’s best champions. While I understand their hesitance to do so (Sett is the highest-priority top laner on Patch 10.6 and Solo had two monster games on Sett in 2019), I still think the trade would be worth it to get their prized bot lane.