RheingoldRiver brings match reports and interviews from the LCS floor

With excellent overviews of each match and interviews with the expert summoners involved, RheingoldRiver brings fantastic insight into the events that enthralled millions as part of the League of Legends Championship Series.

RheingoldRiver is a valued member of the terrific LolKing community; the site for all of your League of Legends tools, guides and information. You can also find additional, regular LoL insights at Rhein’s own blog, right here.

After two teams had been relegated on the first day, Dignitas needed to prove that they had what it took to stay in the LCS.  And they did, winning the massive level-1 victory of securing 3 of the 4 jungle buffs.  Though Team Summon had the early kill advantage, off of some very well-timed ganks from Sickoscott's Volibear combined with Captain Korea's Requiem cooldown, Dignitas exerted perfect Dragon control, and the global presence from Scarra's Evelynn completely outclassed that of Team Summon's midlaner, especially when Crumbz was able to combine Scarra's initiates with his Paranoia.  Dignitas secured Baron for themselves at about 30 minutes and shortly after pushed to the already-exposed Dignitas base and closed out the game.

Realizing the power of Scarra's Evelynn, Team Summon focused all three of their bans to the Dignitas midlaner in the second game of the set.  Still with Karthus, Captain Korea took the first five kills of the game, and after that he was completely unstoppable.  It was Team Summon this game with the perfect Dragon control, and despite several attempts by Dignitas to engage with Stand United and Paranoia, the Requiem was just too much for them to deal with, and Team Summon won fight after fight, one of them engaged by a flash-ult from AD Carry otter on Varus.  After taking their first baron, the blue team took down two of Dignitas's inhibitors, and they wouldn't even go for a second baron, instead methodically pushing through the entirety of Dignitas's base, eventually winning the game just before the 40-minute mark.

With six midlaners banned in the third game, Dignitas went for the surprising Rammus pick in the jungle.  At first, the pick looked terrible: this game Team Summon took three of the first four buffs, and actually controlled the next two of Dignitas's blue buffs also.  But Crumbz just farmed, and with the combination of mobility boots, Acceleration Gate from KiWiKiD and powerball, Rammus became unstoppable, surprising every member of Team Summon with his taunts.  This, combined with the advantage that Scarra was able to get from a fight near Dragon, led Dignitas to absolute dominance in the midgame, and the LCS team ultimately forced out a surrender from Team Summon before 30 minutes, taking the series into game 4 with a 2-1 advantage.

Not wanting to face Rammus again, Team Summon decided that the safest thing to do in game 4 was to let Scarra have Diana, and at first that seemed fine.  First blood and then two more kills went to the blue team off a gank from Sickoscott's Hecarim, and despite some pressure from Scarra, Team Summon had an answer for everything.  Every time Dignitas won a fight, Summon seemed able to take another objective, but finally imaqtpie had a fantastic Baron steal just after the 30-minute mark.  Though Team Summon was able to secure a few kills despite Dignitas's baron, they overstayed trying to repush the middle inhibitor around the 40-minute mark, and Scarra's Diana proved ultimately too scary.  A bait in botlane led to a kill on Sickoscott at 40 minutes, and Dignitas pushed the nexus less than a minute later, securing their spot in the summer split.

After Dignitas's 3-1 victory, I interviewed their support player Patoy.

Rhein:  You played Zyra in two of your games.  What makes Zyra so strong to you?

Patoy:  I consider Zyra my main.  In my eyes, she's very good for scouting on blue and purple, which is a huge bonus if you can do it at both sides.  She's extremely good in lane—she's one of the few "catch" supports now that Blitz is not as good, and people aren't playing Thresh as much.  You're able to lane against almost everything, and I picked her twice because I noticed that their champions basically run at you, like Voli, Hecarim will just run at you for their engage.  Zyra naturally is an anti-engage champion, so I'll snare, root all of them, and we'll just go from there.  She's a really good champion.

The two games that you played Sona, was it for you, your team, or to deny the other team?

A little bit of everything.  Every team's gonna be wanting Sona because it's just the most standard support.  She's good in almost every situation.  She's a really top contender for support right now, so when we first-picked it, it's because we had no other high-priority pick open and to take it away from them.  I was only really looking at three supports this whole tournament: Elise, Zyra and Sona.  So if Sona was gone I would have just picked Elise or Zyra.

Any chance we'll see you play Alistar any time soon?

I wish Alistar was good.  I would play him.  But with how lane swaps are, and how they increased turret damage by 5%, he's really hard to play now.  And especially on top of the Volibear nerf too, you can't die as easily with any other junglers outside of, say, Rammus.  So if you don't have the tag-team dive with the jungler, he's really hard to play right now.

If Riot were to buff one support champion, what would you have it be?

They need to buff Alistar.  I want to play that champion every game, but he's just so bad right now.  If they just took out the turret damage change, if they buffed his E, just did anything to his base stats to make him able to dive again, he'd be really good, and I just want to spam him every game, but I gotta live with it.  So just buff Alistar.

Your team did run Rammus.  How long have you been practicing that pick for?

We've been running Rammus for about a week and a half now.  I'm not exactly sure where Crumbz got the idea.  I think he just played it one game in solo queue, and it just clicked with him, so we just ran it in scrims, and basically I don't know if Rammus is bad late game or anything like that, but I know that if you get the pick, then you just destroy that one guy.  The other team just didn't run cleanse on their carry, so once he got that one pick, everyone on our team just followed up and it turned out really nice for us.

It synergized really well with Jayce because of the Acceleration Gate.  Do you think it's a strong pick even without Jayce?

We don't know if it's good without Jayce because for some reason, in every single game we want Rammus, the way picks and bans go, Jayce is naturally the first champion we look at for that lane.  So without it, I don't know, but we just always get them together somehow so it turns out really well.

It seemed like you did a really good job in picks and bans.  Is that something that your team practices a lot?

Yeah.  We put a huge emphasis on level-1s and picks and bans because it's really easy to win a game or a set of matches just before the game even starts.  So it's really important to put an hour the day before going into a match and just look at picks, bans, the champions the other team plays, stuff like that.

One very specific question.  Why do you build Twin Shadows on your Zyra?

I got it because I always go Kages.  My first item on Zyra will always be Twin Shadows or Nomicon, and I went for the Twin Shadows over Nomicon in this case because first I needed their MR because they had a Karthus who was extremely fed, so I needed MR, and second because they had Nasus and Renekton.  If I cut off their initial engage of them running at you without using ultis, then I can follow up the snare with the Twin Shadows, and I will deny their engage without even having to use my ulti.

You were fighting against the team of the person you replaced when you joined Dignitas.  What was that like for you?

Everyone thinks there's a huge hate connection relationship between Dignitas and L0cust.  I can't speak for everyone else on Dignitas, but I'm really good friends with L0cust.  After the games I talked to him for like twenty minutes, we're really good friends.  It was really fun to play against him too, and I hate that guy because he camped my lane so he killed me three times.  But that's all right.  There's no hate or anything.

Do you compare support tips ever or scrim botlane together?

We never scrimmed their team, so we didn't do anything like that, but before LCS started we talked a lot about supports, items, just everything about supports.

One final question, switching gears a bit.  Comparing supports in North America to supports in other regions, what are some supports in other regions that North American supports can learn from?

The main thing I focus on personally is the mechanical play.  It's public knowledge that NA solely on mechanical level is really behind, so I try to stay up on top with my mechanics.  I don't miss autos, land every ability, all snares, just execute it properly.  I watch EU, but mainly Korea and China because they're obviously the top contenders in League of Legends right now.  So I watch them, and I see not just when they use it but how they use it.  I look at skill orders, items, masteries if they’re available.  I see how they stand, how they get there five minutes earlier in the game that led them to being there.  I look at everything possible and I'll just learn from them, because I do not want to be labeled an "NA support."  NA, again, it's just public knowledge that NA supports are generally not so good.

Who's the one support you admire the most?

I don't really look at any one support to really say, "I look up to him" or anything like that.  I just look at everyone outside of NA as a whole, just everyone really, any VoDs I can get a hold of I'll just watch, I'll see how I can incorporate it with my own play.

Any shoutouts?

Shoutout to our sponsors, Alienware, Intal, and Scan.  And you can follow me on twitter @PatoyLoL.