Sam's Blog #3

Hi, welcome to my third and final LoL eSports blog post!

Today I will be talking about the recent semifinals of the OnGameNet Champions Spring 2014 season: Samsung Blue vs Samsung Ozone

SSO vs SSB
Game One
Game Two
Game Three
Game Four

Game 1 started off with a surprising Miss Fortune pick from imp. Miss Fortune had not recently been played but due to the recent patch some of her ability kit were tweaked so that she was stronger in the late game, evening out the problems that had not led to her being picked in earlier seasons. This selection paid off, and imp was able get first blood by killing spirit's Nocturne within 3 minutes of the start of the game. The Ozone team was able to stay ahead of their sister team for most of the game, as Blue's composition was built for higher mobility and picking one or two champions out of position, but Ozone kept the heat high for Blue by constantly keeping their jungler close to lanes being pressured. In the end they closed the game at 15:4 kills to Ozone, with the game going for 30 minutes, and the MVP going to Mata from Ozone, whose successful position on support Annie led to multiple won team fights

The 2nd game started relatively slow, until SSO dade's high mobility pick of Yasuo was able to first blood imp's Twitch at 14 minutes. The two teams were neck and neck for a large portion of the game, until one successful team fight from Blue enabled them to bowl into Ozone's base and end the game at 15:7 kills to Blue, and the MVP going to dade.

Game 3 was marked with the return of the Kog Maw and Soraka bottom lane from Blue, not seen since Blue knocked out SK Telecom T1K from the WCG2014 Korea qualifiers in 2013. The game started off with a bang, with deft's Kog Maw baiting Looper (Ryze), DanDy (Khazix) and Pawn (Lulu) by tower hugging at low health while Spirit luurked in the nearby brush on Lee Sin. Ozone, thinking they could tower dive him and run to get first blood, were deleted one by one by Kog Maw turning atthe last second to attack them while the towers beat on the three mercilessly, and Spirit coming into the fight as soon as Deft turned, netting Spirit a triple kill at 6 minutes. Blue won in the end with a slow push down mid, with Spirit ending up taking the MVP for his continuous pressure on all lanes.

Game 4 looked to be a comeback for Ozone, with Pawn leading at 3 kills to 0 deaths. However, the potential could've been much worse for Blue if it not for Heart's Nami play, being able to continuously shut down ganks and disengage team fights with his extremely sharp bubble-stuns and tidal waves. The game followed a quite typical/standard path, with blue evening out the score by 24 minutes, from 7:3 to Ozone to 11:11 tied all. Blue used this lead to pull ahead, with Spirit, who was at 10 kills to 0 deaths by 30 minutes, leading the team by continuously taking picks from Ozone one by one. By the end, Blue had won with a resounding 25:11 to Blue. Heart's Nami was the MVP, netting himself 21 assists throughout the whole game, and potentially keeping the Ozone team from winning game 4 and forcing a tiebreaker. Instead, Blue took the set, and took the series too at 3-1 to Blue, ensuring Blue had a ticket to the Grand finals on the 16th of May.

With Blue going to the 2014 spring season finals, the viewers were shut down from seeing a rematch. CJ Blaze, a team in the other semifinals game, had versed Ozone in the 2013 Spring season finals. However, both CJ Blaze and Samsung Ozone were knocked out in the semis, with two totally new teams debuting in the finals: Samsung Blue vs Najin White Shield. Ozone and Blaze, however, have to face off again in the 3rd place match on the 14th.