Korean Regional Finals: The fire is extinguished eSports Central

Final match in the Korean Regionals between Azubu Blaze and NaJin Sword. This is a rematch of The Champions Summer third place match where Sword beat Blaze in order to have the points to get into the Korean Regionals. These two teams are the pinnacle of Korean League of Legends and the match definitely showcased that.



NaJin Sword obviously had a plan coming into game one and it seems like it was better than whatever Azubu Blaze had concocted. The Evelynn pick was to create a sense of unknown and they used that to constantly keep Azubu Blaze, especially Cpt Jack and Lustboy, on their back foot. Evelynn got a quick Deathfire Grasp and became the nuker from the shadows which caused for some great initiates. At one point Sword engaged 4 versus 5 and still got an even 2 for 2 trade, that is how strong their initiate was between Evelynn, Irelia, and Maokai.

Cpt Jack and Lustboy got ganked early in the game by a 4 man squad of NaJin Sword. The gank got them really behind and the pressure from PraY and Cain along with WatcH and Ssong was too much for them to handle. Reapered looked good in the game with Jayce but wasn't able to carry the game with all the other lanes losing.

NaJin Sword 1-0



NaJin Sword looked like they were going to start where they left off the first game. They get out to a quick 2 to 1 lead before the laning phase but Azubu Blaze does a lane swap that cripples MakNooN. Cain comes up to help out but that just puts him further behind in experience and he needs to hit six shortly after Blaze's Ambition does so that he can follow him around the map. MakNooN just never gets in a good groove against the duo lane while Reapered did alright.

The real tragedy came during the teamfights. Somewhere between game 1 and game 2 WatcH forgot how to initiate and teamfight. In a mid lane teamfight he used Dragon's Descent away from his team to where no one was able to follow up fast enough; That team fight went in Blaze's favor. The next blunder was during a fight in the bottom lane where all of Blaze was down to a sliver of health but WatcH decided to chase Ambition through the jungle which meant that Lee Sin was able to get away and the rest of NaJin Sword was dead.

Helios on Lee Sin was a treat to watch. He put on pressure in the early game and in the team fights he was that typical assassin type character; sweeping in for the easy kills.

Azubu Blaze evens up the series

WatcH left game 2 before it was finished so NaJin Sword goes into game 3 with only 2 bans due to OGN rules.



Early in the game, Locodoco said that Azubu Blaze would have a great chance if the game hit the 40 minute mark. The team composition from Sword was centered around all-in initiation that could only win before the 40 minute mark.

Sword started out very strong. They had 2 towers, 2 dragons, and 3 kills to the nothing of Blaze but they were not pushing their advantage enough. Instead of going all-in on kills, they were beating around the bush a little too much. Eventually, they slipped. MakNooN went for a Flash Unstoppable Force that hit a lot of the Blaze team but a Orianna Command: Shockwave was too much to handle for the Sword. They lose 4 while Blaze only lose 3 and the fights start going more in their favor. Let's pause to figure out why.


The shockwaves that came from Ambition towards the end of the game were too much for Sword. Sucking in the opposing champions and then having all the area-of-effect damage just destroyed Sword. It isn't often that we see a team come back from a 6k deficit. Obviously all it takes is 3 Guardian Angels and Orianna.

Blaze 2-1 Lead



NaJin Sword got off to another great start. They took down the first line of towers by the 15 minute mark and opened up a substantial gold lead. The underdogs once again controlled dragon and had a kill lead on Azubu Blaze. However, this game Sword never let it slip.

They were able to win a couple of teamfights, take a baron, and get a huge gold lead that allowed them to play at the speed they wanted.

Sword did a great job of taking out Ambition early with two successful ganks on the mage. Ambition was never able to get to that point that he got to in game 3 where he could Command: Shockwave and burst down the opposing team and this team composition didn't have the aoe damage to do it either.

Sword's composition was really great. The Karthus, Corki and Jayce brought a lot of aoe to the teamfight while Skarner pulled the enemy in with Impale and Sona kept them there with her Crescendo.

Sword finished out the game 13k gold ahead and up like 9 kills after the ace for the last teamfight.

Series tied at 2, blind pick for game 5



Blind pick is always an interesting dynamic. Will the players go for nothing but "Over-Powered" champions or will they go for a team composition that does something specific. Many people were surely expecting and desiring MakNooN to play Rengar but he didn't, he decided to play Jayce. It worked out well. PraY was able to get his goto carry, Ezreal, and watch got his favorite, Maokai. As for Azubu Blaze, they got their favorite champions too. Ambition was able to grab Ryze, a champion he does really well on. Reapered picked up Vladimir which had been banned out in all of the previous games.

PraY gets caught out at level 1 around the bottom lane. He gets Rune Prisoned, hit by a Lee Sin Q but avoids any other damage by Flash and Arcane Shift to safety, drinks a potion and then dodges another Q from Lee Sin and he lives.

NaJin Sword did a good job of focusing Ambition since they took him down twice in the early game, Karthus had both kills. The aggression didn't end in the early game though, it continued the whole game and it forced Blaze, Ambition especially, to play on their back foot and behind all game. As the game drew to a close since Sword was up over 10k gold, Ambition still didn't have a single item worth mentioning, honestly, no one on Blaze had an item worth mentioning. NaJin Sword on the other hand had fed carries and the farm to go with them. They had already built a Trinity Force, Athene's Unholy Grail, and Hexdrinker. The damage they were doing to Blaze was just way too much to handle. Blaze eventually surrenders after losing a teamfight in their base and NaJin Sword celebrates like they just won the Super Bowl.

S2 Seeding

Riot made a major mistake when they made their bracket for Season 2 World Championships. They had five regional winners but only four seeded spots that could avoid the group play. Therefore, one regional winner was going to get shafted! This should never happen in a tournament that has so much on the line because it stacks the deck against someone that has worked just as hard to achieve the ranking they did. Piss poor tournament administration from Riot and the tournament hasn't even started.

Teams that are seeded
TSM
M5
WE
TPA


Frost got screwed. Good game Riot.

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