Legacy v Chiefs

Legacy and Chiefs met for the first time since last split in what has for years been a classic battle between two mainstays of the the Oceanic Pro League. As the players themselves have said, their rivalry has mellowed somewhat in the last couple of splits with the rise of Dire Wolves, so there is as much mutual respect in this match-up now as there is a driving desire to crush the opposition.

Game 1

The team comps and bans were pretty standard, with a decent mix of team-fighting and poke for both. Chiefs’ Caitlyn pick did give them a little more late game scaling, although Legacy’s Kalista could provide better objective control throughout the game. The combination of Caitlyn and Taliyah also had the potential to provide Chiefs with good siege through the mid to late game, with the Zac, Kennen and Rakan giving them an incredibly strong all-in off the back of a pick. The pick potential of Legacy was looking slightly stronger with Jayce’s long range combo and the CC out of Gragas, Braum and Mega-Gnar.

Early game

An early invade by Spookz snuck Carbon’s blue buff away at 3.25 mins, which gave Chiefs some early pressure, with the lanes mostly even. Carbon, realising his blue was gone tried to convert his botlane presence into a roam instead, but it ended in a bad trade for Legacy’s NZ duo. And as soon as the Legacy Jungler showed bot, Spookz was able to immediately move in for the gank on Claire, nabbing Swiffer firstblood when Claire held onto his summoners rather than flashing away. The foiled botlane gank, and the loss of his blue, put Carbon significantly behind for most of the early game.

At 9 mins in Legacy were given a handout that mitigated most of their early game losses. Chiefs went deep into Legacy’s bot jungle looking for a second kill on Claire. It ended in a 2 for 1 in Legacy’s favour, with Swiffer and Spookz going back to base in trade for Carbon’s Gragas as Raes failed to follow up from botlane and Swiffer missed his Flash. A kill apiece for the Legacy botlane and this gave Claire the chance for some free farm to equalise his CS as well as the two assists- leading to a 10min Duskblade.

At 11 mins, Legacy tried to capitalise on their recent skirmish to pick up the Infernal Drake- with both toplaners hitting their TPs it turned into a teamfight instead, with Claire and Carbon both going down a lot earlier than their team would’ve liked. A huge ultimate from Swip3rR on Kennen stunned up Cupcake and Tally, but the 3 remaining Legacy players turned back to fight, quickly taking down Swip3rR, and a huge ult from Tally’s Mega Gnar allowed Legacy to grab the ace. After a rocky start Legacy now led 7-4 in kills.

Poor positioning immediately after the drake fight cost Swiffer his life in the midlane, but a daring engage and ultimate from Zac stopped the tower going down for first tower blood. Chiefs then sent their botlane top taking a three man dive to kill Tally and race Legacy for first brick. Instead, Legacy’s duo took bot tower and Infernal- all Chiefs got was the kill. All in all the macro was looking much stronger for Legacy. This was underlined when they rotated mid, picking up 3 more kills alongside mid tower, before turning for Rift Herald which they used to take the toplane outer turret. The CC, pick and dive potential of Legacy’s draft was really beginning to show through.

Mid-game

At this point Legacy seemed to be able to choose freely between splitting or roaming round as a group of five, being 9k gold ahead really allowed them to start dominating the map. Chiefs did have the better warding throughout the midgame though, somehow managing to get really strong vision of their jungle, despite Legacy’s dominance. This allowed them to avoid Legacy’s roaming gangs and attempt to farm up and stabilise. It was too dangerous to get deep vision however, and realising this Legacy cleared out Baron vision and swiftly burnt it down. Chiefs were waiting for this, and with a quick movement across the map, and Teleport from Swip3rR, Legacy were trapped in the Baron pit, vulnerable to Chiefs’ AOE. Claire went down quickly again, with Lost and Cupcake eventually following in trade for EGym. Both Tally and Carbon escaped over the back of the pit, holding onto Baron buff for Legacy’s next attack. Tally then raced back to midlane picking up a kill on Swiffer, who was again out of position, heavily damaging Chiefs’ ability to waveclear in the face of Baron buff.

Legacy switched 4 members to the toplane, taking out Raes while pushing to inhibitor, before rotating mid and getting a kill on EGym and a second inhibitor. They then backed off, using Baron-empowered recalls, with a 15-8 kill and 12k gold lead.

Late game

With two lanes of super minions Legacy pushed down bot looking to finish the game. Chiefs attempted a last ditch engage with Spookz and Swip3rR ults, but a 2-2 trade should have been enough for Legacy to win the game. Instead, they chased Swiffer away from the Chiefs’ base, left one remaining Nexus turret, and cleaned up a Mountain drake on the back-end, with Baron up in the next 50 seconds.

A final team fight at Baron, with everyone stacked on top of each other as they looked for AOE, fell predictably in Legacy’s favour with their huge gold lead. After picking up 3 kills Tally TP’d to the Nexus and the rest of Legacy swiftly joined him for the win.

Although Chiefs had a bright start to Game 1, a couple of instances of poor positioning gave Legacy the chance to get ahead at key moments of the game. Legacy’s ability to find picks- even under tower at times- and a superior macro game let them get well ahead on gold and snowball beyond what Chiefs were able to deal with. Even when Chiefs found a good engage, which happened in two or three teamfights, they were just too far behind to claw back any kind of advantage. Legacy on the other hand were able to roam and take objectives at will, eventually culminating in a win after a failed last-ditch attempt by Chiefs to fight them at Baron.

Game 2

Chiefs went into the second game with their 3 missing bans restored, giving them a lot more impact on shaping the draft.

Legacy drafted into a strong team-fighting comp for this game, J4, Zac and Taric providing heavy lock down and combined with Orianna and Kalista there was huge potential for game winning wombo-combos. Chiefs’ draft on the other hand seemed a little unbalanced, primarily seeming to be focused on getting picks with Alistar, Kled and LeBlanc, but having little in the way of protection from Legacy’s comp. Running with Swip3rR’s Kled into Legacy’s heavy aoe CC team seemed risky at best.

Early Game

This game started a little more quietly than the previous with standard jungle pathing and no successful early ganks. All lanes started pretty well, evenly trading and cs-ing for the most part. It wasn’t until almost 6 min that any lane gained a real advantage with the Legacy botlane getting a good chunk of damage onto Raes, giving them a little more lane pressure and pushing in to tower- letting Cupcake’s Taric get some deeper wards in the Chiefs’ jungle.

Firstblood came at 7 min off camera as Swip3rR took down Tally post-lane TP, giving him a heavy advantage. Only a minute afterwards Legacy’s botlane push was punished with a gank from Spookz picking up the kill on Taric. Lanes continued to be relatively even in cs, but Carbon was beginning to get a large lead on Spookz, as he wasn’t looking to hit lanes as often. Both junglers were also working overtime to try and track their opponents movements, with several ganks being foiled through good vision checks.

Mid Game

Legacy managed to get the first objective of the game with a quick grab of the Infernal Drake, and then crucially managed to rotate into top lane and scare Chiefs off the Herald as well. Chiefs still held a small gold lead from the firstblood however, which was soon put into use with a Kled ult and Cho’Gath gank to pick up another kill on Tally- also helping Chiefs to take first break on the toplane outer and finally collect the Herald. But in a huge mistake Spookz failed to pick up the Herald buff, effectively wasting it- the second time Spookz has done this in the OPL.

With only one tower down Legacy had to be feeling pretty good only being 2k gold behind, knowing that as soon as skirmishes and team-fighting occurred they’d have a huge synergy advantage. Chiefs were able to cash in some pressure to get the next Drake, giving the teams an Infernal apiece. They immediately gave up that pressure with a gift-wrapped EGym for Legacy, Lost securing the kill to put the count at 1-3 in Chiefs’ favour. But once EGym was back, a roam down from Spookz helped Chiefs pick up their second turret, pushing them to a 2.5k gold lead and putting a bit of pressure on Legacy to start looking for some kills or towers of their own.

And they were soon able to pick some up. With most of Chiefs’ gold on Swip3rR’s split-pushing Kled Chiefs’ attempt to take the mid outer turret was a disaster as they were collapsed on- a Zac ult delivering kills on Spookz and EGym. LGC then immediately turned for Baron, a bold call and one that baited in both Raes and Swiffer who were quickly dispatched. Bizzarely Swip3rR then TP’d in only to be cleaned up by the waiting Legacy players. Some more poor positioning and decision making from Chiefs again letting Legacy back into the game, with the kills turning 6-3 against Chiefs.

As soon as Chiefs had respawned it was time for a fight at Drake- another Infernal- and the full power of Legacy’s comp was revealed, the AOE and CC providing too much for Chiefs with a double kill for Lost as part of a 3-1 trade in Legacy’s favour. The Legacy ADC was now sitting at a comfortable 6-0-1, and Chiefs were looking ready to capitulate.

Late Game

At 25.50 min Chiefs knew they needed something special and with some excellent vision control were able to pick up an incredibly quick Baron, and they were even able to pick up a kill on the back-end as Legacy tried to catch them out. In what was a strange turn of events LGC were then able to grab priority in the toplane- nabbing two towers and two kills- even while Chiefs were looking to use their Baron buff. Despite Chiefs’ tower lead Legacy now commanded a slight 1k gold lead, and had much more presence across the map, with Chiefs seeming nervous and uncertain in their shotcalling.

At 30 min LGC decided to unleash the full power of their comp with successive tower dives down the midlane picking up every single structure as well as kills on the entire Chiefs line-up. Huge ults from Zac and Taric facilitated the dive with insane damage coming out of Lost’s Kalista, now with 10 kills in Legacy’s 18-7 lead.

At 33 min it was time to end the game, and a 2 man ult from Carbon’s Zac gave LGC kills on Swip3rR and EGym. A short triple kill for Lost later and Legacy had the Ace and the win, taking a 2-0 series over Chiefs.

It definitely felt like Chiefs were unsure about what they wanted to do with their comp in this game. Although you could argue that they were looking to set up a 1-3-1 with the Kled and LeBlanc their positioning and map movements never gave them the opportunity. Several serious mistakes (particularly a failure to pick up the Herald buff) gave Legacy a chance to find their footing in the midgame and then go in for teamfights that they were never going to lose. All in all not what you’d hope for in what has generally been a close and exciting match-up throughout the OPL’s history. Hopefully Chiefs can get some good data in post-match analysis for their next matches, while Legacy will be feeling very confident as they look to run clear as leaders of the OPL.