GPL Winter 2014 W1D1: Red buff invades and near-throws galore

The Garena Premier League begins once more, with old favorites and new faces clashing to make strong impressions.

The GPL 2014 has finally arrived! Starting this Winter split, and following on into the Spring and Summer, 12 teams from Southeast Asia battle it out to see who deserves a shot at the Season 4 World Championships next year. With a much larger roster of teams, we get to see veteran names square off against newcomers in the ultimate test of League of Legends skill in the region.

AHQ vs TPA

Kicking off the new season is a rematch of two of the top GPL teams last season, ahq e-Sports Club and the Taipei Assassins. Though a lot of roster changes were made (to TPA in particular), the names of these two teams are well-known throughout SEA, thus making this a great debut match.

While TPA has been recently known for its unorthodox no marksman strategies, it seems that they wanted to play safe for now and utilize a more standard team comp. During the drafting phase, TPA was severely limiting westdoor's choices with three mid-centric bans. Then we saw both teams make picks for strong teamfighting and AD Carry protection. Finally, at the last pick, TPA pulled Zac out of nowhere and placed him in the hands of their mid, Morning.

An invade by TPA to red proved to be successful, and while ahq answered well by taking TPA's red, DinTer on jungle Jarvan IV became a total nuisance to Naz's Aatrox right from the get go. DinTer constantly outjungled Naz, taking away map control, which allowed the rest of TPA to stay aggressive throughout the laning phase. Speaking of aggression, Morning's Zac was highly effective against westdoor's Kassadin, battering the Void Walker's face constantly with rubbery punches, giving him no time to recover.

While it took more than 10 minutes for first blood to occur, it was obvious that TPA was in control. Every lane was winning due to Jarvan IV rampaging through his and Naz's jungle. This resulted in dragons and towers being grabbed by TPA, further increasing their lead. With map control lost, ahq attempted to group up and tried to pick off TPA members one by one. It was working at first, since TPA made a few bad map movements, but the gold lead was too much, and they had to keep running back to base as Achie on Renekton continuously splitpushed.

TPA commanded the entire pace of the game, but they didn't close it out that well. There were some moments of hesitation, even windows of opportunity for ahq to come back, but fortunately for TPA, one forced engage got them a Baron buff, which they used to make a last push, giving them a perfect ace and the win.

SAJ vs MSK

Next we had a match between two teams that have two things in common: they have played in the World Championships, and they beat the Singapore Sentinels to do so. The Saigon Jokers have been around the GPL scene for a while, whereas Mineski got its spot in the limelight when they were sent to represent the Philippines in the S3WC SEA Qualifiers.

The drafting phase showed two very different team compositions being built. For SAJ, they went for "poke and pick", utilizing Nidalee spears and Corki missiles to chunk down opponents, making them easy pickings for Kha'Zix and Elise. For MSK, they used a more balanced teamfighting crew, with emphasis on AoE lockdown and zoning that would allow Exo's Ezreal and Ced's Ahri to take out enemies safely.

The game started out with another red buff invade, a steal this time by SAJ after Safety got his blue. However, Ced responded very quickly and trapped Safety, giving up first blood to Noel's Aatrox, powering up his already strong early game jungle. With Kha'zix effectively out of the game, MSK was able to do what they pleased, engaging in skirmishes all across the map, most of them resulting in MSK getting kill advantages. This snowballed into complete dragon control, and it looked like it'd be over soon.

Except it wasn't. What MSK did was similar to TPA's plan last game: let Renekton splitpush while the rest of the team roamed. But that was against a teamfight comp, and SAJ, while impaired with a poorly farmed Kha'zix, still had potent siege defense with Nidalee and Corki. This was shown when MSK took the first Baron for free, yet were unable to do anything with it. It also didn't help that the team wasn't sure how to close out the game, even with down inhibitors, and that TGee kept getting caught out.

Fortunately for the Philippine squad, a perfect engage by Aatrox near the 43 minute mark allowed MSK to get close to SAJ and take them out in a 5 -1 trade, and MSK was finally able to march towards SAJ's nexus and take the win.

HKA vs TPS

This was the first match starring two of the newest additions to the GPL roster: Ucan Hong Kong Attitude, and TPA's sister team, Taipei Snipers. For some, this will be the first time these two teams will be seen in play, and that makes this matchup even more exciting. 

Both teams made similar team comps, with the big difference being the top lane picks. MyticQ's Jax gave HKA a third carry threat, while Zonda's Shen impied TPS would place more emphasis on protecting GodJJ's Vayne. Gragas and Orianna, chosen for HKA and TPS respectively, play similar roles in that they both create favorable setups for their teammates.

It seems that invading red buff was the theme today, as that is that TPS attempted to do. Unfortunately for them, the Hong Kong team surprised the Taiwanese, forcing them to give up two kills. With a huge advantage early, HKA switched bot and top, and the duo helped Jarvan IV steal red, leaving Aatrox with only the blue buff to work with at the start. The 2v1 by HKA also forced Aatrox to stay at top and help Zonda's Shen, freeing up the other lanes.

The rest of the game was just a display of TPS' great farming, which allowed them to stay even for the most of the early to mid game, and terrible luck in teamfights. Almost all of the major engages ended with HKA members with only slivers of health, and this allowed HKA to get objectives and map control, but the biggest stroke of unluck was when HKA was doing the 2nd Baron, and TPS pushed them out midway. They had almost secured the buff when Jarvan IV jumped over the wall and stole it.

While TPS was a bit ahead in kills, the overall gold told a different story, and with three major lategame threats, HKA reached the point where they were simply too powerful to be dealt with, and slowly but surely, they destroyed TPS' base.

NFL vs BKT

The final game is between the GPL veterans Bangkok Titans and the newcomers from Vietnam, Neoultion e-Sports Full Louis. Although a new team, NFL does have a face familiar to the LoL SEA crowd: AD Carry Violet, who played for the Saigon Jokers and Saigon Fantastic Five before.

Both teams pulled out one champion uncommon to the current metagame. For NFL, it was mid Jayce. Once a top priority pick, changes to his interaction with Tear of the Goddess greatly reduced his power spike. Still, his poke via Shock Blast/Acceleration gate remains powerful. As for BKT, it was Sejuani. Occasionally seen, the Winter's Wrath offers strong ganks and AoE lockdown, especially with her Glacial Prison ultimate. 

Southeast Asia sure loves its red buff invades, and we see this for the fourth consecutive time. Similar to the last two, it ended up in disaster for BKT as NFL placed an early defensive ward, which allowed them to spot BKT's movements and caught them by surprise. Immediately after gaining this advantage, NFL almost lost it when ShyN on Jayce got outplayed by WarLock on Ezreal, and a 4-1 trade in favor of the Thai team occured at their blue buff.

NFL's saving grace was Elise, who, from the very start, got absolute control of the jungle. In fact, NFL would have had a much bigger lead if it weren't for poor map rotations and Jayce getting caught out constantly. If they grouped more, they could've utilized the gold lead better and ended the game sooner. Instead, they split and ran around the map, which gave BKT a couple of windows for them to bounce back.

Around the 25-minute mark, NFL nearly threw completely by forcing Baron, which ended up in a 4-3 trade for NFL and Baron still alive. Fortunately for the Vietnamese, BKT made a critical mistake in going to Dragon, giving Baron to NFL for free. This allowed them to finally power push mid with the buffs they had and win the game.