How Team WE Stole Game 2 from Young Generation
Young Generation, the #2 seed out of the Vietnamese GPL, looked like a promising contender for moving into the Group Stages of Worlds 2017. Their play-in round robin record ended up being an even 2-2, and they were selected to play against the home crowd favorites in Team WE.
Most of the League eSports world would have chosen WE to be the convincing favorite to sweep Young Generation 3-0 with no reservation, especially after the easy 25-minute victory for the Chinese #3 seed in Game 1 of the series. However, not many would have predicted that Team WE would have to literally steal the Game 2 win right out of the hands of Young Generation.
For Game 2, Young Generation drafted an early game team composition that was focused on snow-balling and winning by the 30-minute mark. Their play would focus around Naul’s Syndra in the mid lane and BigKoro’s Varus in the bot lane. On the other side of the rift, Team WE opted for a hyper-scaling, triple marksmen team composition consisting of Condi’s Ezreal jungle, Xiye’s Corki mid lane, and Mystic’s Tristana in the bot lane, along with Ben on Janna to follow-up with as an ardent censer shielding machine.
Team WE’s Condi repeatedly ganked YG NhocTy on Cho’Gath in top lane with some easy assistance from 957 on Maokai. This gave the Chinese team an early gold lead. However, by the 12-minute mark, YG had captured over a 2k gold lead thanks to an infernal drake, first tower blood, and a double kill by Naul in the bot lane. Add on to that a rift herald and three more towers, thanks to some superb macro play and rotations, and Young Generation was ready to team fight by 15 minutes.
Young Generation subsequently scored an ace in the mid lane and held a 5k gold lead by 18 minutes, relying on the mid-game power spikes of Varus and Syndra. This game was looking fantastic for the Vietnamese team. However, that’s when it started to go downhill. YG made a logical baron call at 21 minutes after picking off Team WE’s mid laner and AD carry. Condi then made the biggest play of the game by arcane shifting on his Ezreal into the baron pit and stealing the objective with a single mystic shot. The crowd roared for their hometown team. They don’t call Condi, “the Son of Baron,” for nothing.
After the baron power play, Young Generation still held about a 1k gold lead for the next 8 minutes despite losing the baron, while both teams farmed up and only traded a couple kills here and there. Then, the baron respawned, and YG were looking to secure this one to bring the game back in their favor after such a dominant early game. They proceeded to start the baron as five to rush it down, and then once again the crowd went wild. Condi somehow found a way to arcane shift into the baron pit and barely get a mystic shot off before dying to steal the objective for a second time in 10 minutes.
Team WE now had their second baron of the game and could successfully push all three lanes, win a team fight 4-1, and end the game in the next 2 minutes. By the time the nexus exploded, WE had obtained a 5.2k gold lead, a 10k gold lead swing in the extent of about 15 minutes. They went on to win a 26-minute game 3 in convincing fashion and swept Young Generation 3-0, with Condi winning player of the series.
Who knows what would have happened if YG were able to secure either of those two barons in Game 2? The Vietnamese squad had all the momentum heading into the mid-game of Game 2, and they potentially could have kept that momentum pushing forward if they could close out the win. All in all, Team WE came away with the series sweep as expected, but it took an unexpected robbery of Game 2 to be victorious.