On Friday night Adobe (2-4) faced off against another AHGL League of Legends team with a winning record, this time versus Rockstar Games. They held a similar record (4-2) compared to Pipeworks, but their skill levels and coordination seemed to be a cut above most of their competition. I always feel a little apprehensive about playing against these companies that are gaming-centric, mainly because those employees are also gaming-centric and have a higher likelihood of being really good at the game. Spoilers to follow…
We were the away team this match, but we happened to work out blue side with first pick, but Rockstar didn’t let Amumu get through the ban phase. They came strong with a very tanky team consisting of Sejuani, Leona, Ryze, and Renekton while Graves was their AD carry. Those base stats ensured a strong level one invade, in which they secured first blood on me, the poor Soraka support. Fortunately, there was no further damage taken from that invasion.
While Adobe’s Caitlyn and Soraka were able to easily pressure and control bottom lane for the laning phase of the game, Malphite had incredible difficulties holding off against Rockstar’s Renekton, especially when Sejuani came into gank. After our top tower went down, Renekton was able to roam and secure kills on mid and control dragon. That set the pace for the rest of the game, with our Xin Zhao jungler losing his second red buff and falling so far behind as to not come out with any counter ganks or kills for the duration of the match. It was a tough game and we fought some parts really well, but all in all I felt like we didn’t go into the game prepared with a strategy that we wanted to run. I feel like we perform much better when we do. Well played, Rockstar. They had 31 kills to our 11 and didn’t give up a single dragon. I take solace in the fact that I don’t have your crazy work schedule as you cram to get the GTA game finished ;-).