Analysis and Opinion

NIGHT VISION: Finals, DWG vs. SN

Night Vision is your nightly recap of the 2020 League of Legends World Championships.

Look below for Recaps, Takeaways, and my pick for which player had a Night to Remember.

Recaps

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Game 1: DWG win
DWG Ornn Graves Orianna Ashe Pantheon
SN Wukong Shen Azir Ezreal Leona

DWG control map early, stack neutrals. SN fight drake 4; BeryL Nuguri pick SN’s pincer apart, DWG inf. soul. SN get Elder w/ Bin suicide engage; DWG kill ’em all. DWG close carefully.


Game 2: SN win
DWG Ornn Evelynn Lucian Aphelios Thresh
SN Fiora Rengar Syndra Jhin Leona

Map split early, SN stack drakes, DWG farming. Lots of skirmishy fighting, SofM + Bin thriving. SofM wins smite for cloud soul, SN mop up chaos after, Baron. Bin pentakill to close.

Game 3: DWG win
SN Jax Nidalee Akali Ezreal Alistar
DWG Kennen Graves Syndra Jhin Braum

DWG win 3 lanes, control neutrals, early cloud soul but throw at Baron. Angel popping off. SN get Elder, lose fight. Nuguri picks SwordArt, Angel bad TP, DWG force Baron and win.

Game 4: DWG win
DWG Ornn Kindred Syndra Caitlyn Pantheon
SN Gangplank Graves Orianna Aphelios Leona

Ghost BeryL lane kingdom huanfeng SwordArt. Canyon again stacking neutrals with 3 winning lanes. Canyon stacks marks, finds solo kills, DWG steamroll: World Champions!

Takeaways

  • It can be complicated to disentangle the relationship between junglers and laners when determining where to place credit or blame. In this series for DWG, Canyon had convincing control of the map at most points, and that is partly a credit to his own pathing, but more a result of his laners’ ability to use their matchups to exert pressure, create lane priority, and also prepare good conditions for Canyon to gank. This is not to take away too much credit from Canyon, but it might explain why I’m not completely all-in on Canyon being a no-question or unanimous Finals MVP.
  • DWG are less comfortable in atypical situations, such as their own Fiora against G2 and the Evelynn/Rengar matchup in game 2 of this series. They seem to much prefer to play standard styles like control mages mid, Nuguri engaging, and Canyon gluing things together on picks with standard, high-tempo pathing like Graves and Nidalee.
  • SofM is one of the most unique players in the world, with his willingness to play with his champion pool (Shen and Rengar in this series!) and his focus on tank/utility itemization. Anyone who is just “discovering” SofM at Worlds this year has been missing out. (I’ve been a fan since his days playing for Snake, and others go much further back as fans of his.)
  • Nuguri is a great Ornn, but that puts more pressure on ShowMaker to be a focal point. ShowMaker held up his end of that deal in games 1 and 4, but not in game 2.

Night to Remember

For the World Finals, I’d like to switch things up and celebrate a 3 Stars list.

  1. Canyon
  2. Nuguri
  3. Ghost

Going into the last game of the series, I felt strongly that Nuguri’s management of his lane against Bin, his gank receptions, and his team fighting had made him the frontrunner as Finals MVP. But Canyon had also been very good throughout the series, and he crushed it in Game 4 to step into the lead.

Ghost sneaks into the third star spot ahead of BeryL and ShowMaker, though any would be a good choice. Ghost and BeryL won the 2v2 bot consistently and created huge pressure points, and Ghost’s play in lane was very stable even while BeryL was out roaming the map.