Match Analysis. Game #1 of Provisionals.

     So this analysis is going to be a little different. I'm going to be going over the game as I usually would but I will also analyze specific plays and what I could have done better. To make this more effective, I'll be uploading clips of each play so this post will be a tad bulky. Make sure to let me know if you like it. If you don't like it, let me know what you'd prefer. Thanks!

Match 1 :

Champion : Pantheon
Role : Jungle
Build Order :

Runes & Masteries :

Notes :


   
     So this was a relatively straight forward game in which I snowballed incredibly effectively. In this game, I'm duo queued with the Morgana. Generally, we go for an invade but their team is a little powerful.

     Starting off, I decide to start on my red buff and then want to go for a level 2 invade. Morgana wanted to come with me to kill Evelynn at her blue buff. Normally, this is incredibly effective but the Evelynn was chunked too low from her blue buff. She had to go back after doing her gromp and blue so we wasted a lot of time. Instead we rotated bottom lane and managed to force Graves' flash. This really cost me though because I was behind by about 45 seconds. What I really should have done was take the Morgana with me and run into her blue. I just didn't have much experience against Evelynn in Season 5 to know how she'd handle.

    I was level 2 at around 4 minutes which was killer. I decided to focus up on farming at this point. After hitting level 3 and killing my Gromp, I go back to get a Stalker's Blade and a Long Sword. I'm still focusing up on farming though. I'm aiming for level 6 before I go for a gank. While I'm killing my Razorbeaks, Morgana actually gets caught out of position and Leona starts chasing. Instead of continuing farming, I rotate down to see if I can get a kill on Leona but it just results in a flash. At this point, I'm really starting to fall behind because I'm not snowballing effectively.

     At this point, I ping dragon because we need to get back into the game. We manage to successfully snag dragon and Evelynn overextended so we also got a free kill on her. After dragon, I go back to purchase another long sword, a stealth ward, and a vision ward for Evelynn. Then I focus on farming again because I'm level 5 at 8 minutes, incredibly underleveled. At around 9:45, I'm still level 5 but Morgana pings me to go in for a dive. So I start going for it, the enemy bottom lane runs, but the Leona dove back in onto us when their turret died. Their Evelynn showed up as well and Zed ulted her. So I flashed passed the Leona and channeled my E onto her for a kill. It worked out pretty effectively and we took advantage of the mistakes the enemy made.

     After that fight, I hit level 6 finally. I also managed to snag my Warrior enchantment as well as another long sword. Now that I'm level 6, I'm looking mainly to gank bottom lane because we forced all their summoners a few moments ago. However, Maokai was having a lot of trouble so I decided to ult top lane. Unfortunately, Hecarim ulted and escaped. It was a MASSIVE waste. I really should have just used my ultimate bottom lane. It's the reason Pantheon is referred to as the guaranteed double kill.

   

     After the failed gank top lane, I focused on farming for a little bit. After a few camps, we started to focus on getting dragon control. While rotating down, Zed caught Diana and I helped kill her. Morgana overextended really hard and channeled her ult but was killed. Instead of backing out, I went into the fight, not taking in account Evelynn ultimate or backup from Hecarim. I was killed really quickly and we ended up losing dragon. It was a REALLY poor fight and, while I wasn't the only one who messed up, I really should've known better than to engage on 4 of their members.

    When I respawned, I purchased a long sword + boots for some mobility and looked to make a play somewhere. While clearing a ward, Hecarim engaged on Zed and I but killed Zed. Fortunately, I managed to snag the kill and escape. It was a little awkward but I was out of mana. If I had better mana conservation there, I would have been able to save the Zed. Shortly after, I walked up to the Maokai who was 1v1'ing the Diana and snagged a kill on her. Every little bit of gold was helping me begin my snowball. When I went back at this point, I purchased a brutalizer but I also bought a cloth armor for the Graves/Hecarim/Evelynn who were all doing a large amount of physical damage. I walked into our bottom side jungle and noticed Hecarim was chasing our Caitlyn so I started to chase after him. I started to back off and prepare to ult but Hecarim ended up killing Caitlyn. While my ultimate was a little silly, I ended up in their backline and managed to snag a kill on the Graves. After, I was exhausted and couldn't quite do enough damage to kill the Evelynn but my team cleaned up the fight. Overall, it went pretty well but I honestly feel like I shouldn't have ulted there. I might have been able to keep the Caitlyn alive with my stun instead and then we would've had her for a bit longer in the fight. I may not have died. It was a little awkward.

     After that fight, I went back to purchase Mercury Treads for the Leona as well as for the small magic damage from Evelynn/Hecarim and the burst from Diana. I took some time to start farming because my CS was falling behind. Hecarim ended up chasing Zed around and we started focusing on killing him. Hecarim ran away and was backed up by Graves and Leona but Maokai initiated and I managed to a mediocre ultimate off, flashed over the wall, and secured the kill on the Graves. It kind of sucked because I felt like I wasted my flash but getting another kill really helped me. Graves also fail flashed so we burned his summoner.

 

     I shoved out mid lane but Leona ended up jumping on me while I was under turret. I accidently auto'd her and received two turret shots so I was relatively chunked. I went to go farm in my jungle but my team got caught and a few of them died. Luckily, the enemy team chased too far and my team got a kill on the Graves. I ended up coming just in time to acquire a kill as well as secure dragon. The only thing that went wrong here is my team was a little overextended when I was chunked. Plus, I really shouldn't have auto'd the Leona to take that much free damage. If she had someone there, I would've been dead.

     Afterwards, I went back to purchase a pickaxe and we pinged to shove out mid lane and potentially get the tier 2 middle lane turret. Evelynn was pushing bottom lane so there was no real point in not getting the turret. We ended up managing to force the turret and then decided to create a deathbush until someone facechecked. While they deathbushed, I ulted but didn't manage to snag anyone with it. However, our team ended up chasing them down and we snagged a kill on both the Graves and the Hecarim. The deathbush was a brilliant call by the Morgana but my ultimate was piss poor. I should've positioned it farther behind them to anticipate the movement from Hecarim.

     I purchased a Last Whisper after that last kill and went back to farming. At this point in the game, I have maximum armor penetration. I do an absurd amount of damage. While farming, we managed to snag vision control onto baron, pinks and all. When I noticed Hecarim bottom, I told Zed to come join us to rush baron since they had no vision. We managed to snag it even though I mismited because I panicked a little which you REALLY need to make sure you don't do because losing baron is costly. It was definitely worth because even one person with baron can shift the game because of the empowered minions. Plus, we all snagged 300 gold from baron so it put us significantly ahead of the enemy team.

     Afterwards, I go back and I'm trying to start building tanky to be able to survive to do damage. Three of them start pushing our turret so I used my ultimate to engage on them and we managed to kill the Leona. While it wasn't the best use of my ultimate, it was a free kill. It also made securing dragon, which had just come up, not difficult at all. Then we proceeded to push mid as 4 with our empowered minions and Zed managed to get a pick on the Diana. We forced a fight and managed to kill two of their players but went back right after.

     I purchased Randuins Omen for some tankiness mainly because of the heavy AD damage on their team. Hecarim ended up plowing through our team on bottom side so I ulted into the enemy's blue side jungle and began chasing the Hecarim around but it was a REALLY bad call. Honestly, chasing for over 30-40 seconds is never worth it. Eventually, 3 of the enemy players were chasing us as well but, fortunately, I was fed enough that I managed to get a double kill by effectively utilizing my passive (using my auto attacks/Q/W to proc it ). I then suicided to Leona to make sure I didn't give the shutdown gold to Diana. This play was definitely worth it on my part but the chasing bit was a little silly. The ending makes up for it though.

     Once I respawned, I purchased a 3rd damage item as a Hexdrinker which, generally, is REALLY greedy when you play Pantheon. It's useful to purchase more tankiness but, when really fed, I like to get more damage. It's not the best idea, for the most part. Afterwards, Morgana snagged Graves with a snare and I ulted in behind for the impending teamfight. We managed to kill nearly all of them and secure the inhibitor off of that push. Right after, we killed Leona by sitting in a bush and waiting again and then rotated for the top lane tier 2. The only thing I did wrong in this fight is I ulted REALLY far away. I didn't really ult into the teamfight. Fortunately, the fight went into our favor so there's not much to complain about.

     At the tier 2 turret, Hecarim chased down our Caitlyn to attempt to kill her but I crit him once he was below 15% health to execute him. I also used my Randuin's to slow him so he did less damage as well as couldn't get in range of Caitlyn. We did a decent fight and managed to kill almost their entire team. This allowed us to push the top lane tier 2 turret as well as their top inhibitor turret and inhibitor. The game was basically ours at this point.

     Shortly after, we secured baron buff because there was REALLY nothing they could do to contest it with two inhibitors down. Right after, I ulted down to bottom lane to secure dragon. Diana was overextending in bottom lane so we managed to get a quick kill on her and we pushed down bottom lane for their last inhibitor. At this point, Hecarim was caught overextended by me and I managed to kill him quickly. Then we made short work of the rest of their team while three waves of super minions were pushing down their nexus turrets and we managed to win the game.

     So for the most part, I think this game went pretty well. The key mistake I believe I made this game is the screw up on the early Evelynn invade. I think that level 2 mistake actually managed to make this game a lot more difficult than it should have been because of how far behind I was and how ineffective I was until the mid game. Fortunately, I did manage to get fed off kills here and there and made a large impact later in the game. Also, sneaking that baron helped us a lot for the gold as well. Prior to that, we were actually behind. Another thing to note is the amount of cheese we went for in this game. We did a level 2 invade (failed), a level 2 gank (effective), two deathbushes, and sneaking baron. If you're looking to climb, don't be afraid to use these legitimate strategies in your ranked games.

     Alright guys, I realize this post was super long but I wanted to experiment with a different style of analysis. Let me know what you think of it and if you want future game analysis posted in this style. If you have any questions or comments, send me a facebook message, comment here, or tweet me at @Lilnovalas. Thanks for reading guys!