Our first game of Week 5 was against last-placed Dire Wolves, but their rookie roster still packed enough punch to pose a threat to any team. At this stage we were 3-5 in the season, tailing behind the main leaders in the Chiefs and the Bombers, however a good week would definitely do wonders in our chase for a Gauntlet berth.
Sylas, League’s newest champion, was Pabu’s pickup for this game, and the rest of the team would be very damage-heavy, with Praelus on Lee Sin, Haeri on Zoe and Raid on Ashe, with Decoy offering protection on a Tahm Kench. With Sylas’ unique ultimate-stealing ability, Hijack, Pabu certainly lucked out as the Dire Wolves picked four champions with teamfight-initiating ultimate. BioPanther’s Ornn and Corporal’s Braum would offer some large AoE knockups with Call of the Forge God and Glacial Fissure respectively, and Getback’s Orianna and Anderu’s Varus would be able to do heavy damage with Command: Shockwave and Chain of Corruption respectively.
After Pabu significantly chunked out BioPanther in the top lane, it was easy pickings for Praelus to swoop in and claim First Blood for the team. Getback was also chunked low by Haeri’s Zoe, but the kill didn’t go over. Even though Praelus had the kill, UDYSOF was pressuring him in the jungle and many of his camps were taken by UDYSOF’s Olaf. The next kill was a straight outplay onto Haeri, as Getback picked his Zoe off in the midlane.
Praelus took an early opportunity to take down the Rift Herald, and used it just past 12 minutes to take the first turret of the game and deposit a nice chunk of gold into Praelus and Pabu’s pockets. A rotation into the midlane gave both teams a kill as a small brawl erupted, but it was Gravitas who had the 2k gold lead at 13 minutes. The Dire Wolves had bagged themselves a Mountain Drake, and equalised the tower count in the botlane, but they yielded the extremely low turret in order to get another kill onto Getback’s Orianna. As UDYSOF attempted to return, Praelus knocked him down to take another kill to lead 4-2 and 3k gold at 16 minutes, and our Lee Sin was 3/1 already.
A few minutes later the Dire Wolves attempted a Mountain Drake capture, but an Enchanted Crystal Arrow from Raid started the teamfight and the teams briefly pulled off the Drake, and it was Praelus, Pabu and Decoy falling in exchange for Corporal, and all of a sudden the gold lead was almost completely evaporated. We had our revenge however, as a fight in the blue-side top jungle gave three free kills over to us and the gold lead was restored at 3k.
The Dire Wolves got caught again just past 20 minutes, as Anderu and Corporal went to a grey screen. By this stage of the game, we were leading in kills 10-5 and had ourselves a 5k gold lead to boot. We continuously looked for picks as Haeri’s Zoe fired Sleepy Trouble Bubbles left, right and centre. Our next kill wasn’t on a champion however, as we first picked up our first Mountain Drake and then out-rotated the Wolfpack to pick ourselves up a free Baron.
Turrets started to fall very quickly and the gold lead spiralled further and further ahead for us, by 27 minutes we were leading turrets 5-2 and were 8k gold ahead. Nothing of significance happened until just before 32 minutes when a fight was turned around by us to take down BioPanther, Getback and Corporal in exchange for Pabu and Decoy. We showed discipline in not ending immediately, but instead moved towards our second Baron.
We denied a last-ditch teamfight attempt from the Dire Wolves, and slowly moved our minions into the Wolfpack’s den. One last climactic teamfight was all we needed to wipe the Dire Wolves and demolish the Nexus, with Pabu and Decoy dying early but all we needed was Raid to turn around and unleash frosty hell on the Wolfpack to take the fight and the game.
Brandon “Juves” Defina had a quick chat with Decoy after the game
Third placed Avant was our second match of the week, and it would be a fantastic way to keep our streak alive by taking down one of the competition’s strongest teams. Our draft, at least the top side of the map, had echoes of our previous match as Pabu picked up Sylas and Praelus took Lee Sin. Haeri this time was on Syndra, while Raid and Decoy played Ezreal and Pyke respectively.
They’d be matching up against Chippys’ Jayce in the top lane, Sybol’s Zac in the jungle, Shok’s Orianna, and Kai’sa and Thresh for gunkrab and Aladoric. First Blood unfortunately went Avant’s way as a gank from Sybol handed over a kill to gunkrab to boost their ADC up a little bit. Praelus evened the count as he found Sybol in the jungle and gifted the kill to Haeri. An Infernal Drake was also taken by us but there was no gold lead for either side.
At just before 13 minutes, Pabu got caught out in the jungle, but the swift arrival of Praelus and Haeri turned it around and Sybol and Shok both fell in quick succession. Again, Praelus used the opportunity to secure the Rift Herald for Gravitas, and we’d amassed a 1k gold lead. At 18 minutes, we’d upped that to 2k with a 2-1 tower lead and a 3-1 kill lead, but we didn’t wait long until taking down Sybol and Shok again in echoes of the earlier fight. The midlane inner turret took a huge chunk of damage as a result and we’d taken a light grasp on the game.
At 20 minutes, another teamfight in the same area of the jungle yielded yet another kill onto Shok and Sybol, but this time Aladoric was thrown into the bargain as Gravitas moved to a 4k gold lead. Baron soon followed and with the added power it seemed like we’d steamroll the rest of the game. Pabu, however, was quickly caught out but a Trueshot Barrage from Raid ignited the follow-up engage from the rest of Gravitas and Sybol, gunkrab and Aladoric all died once again.
After a few minutes of tense to-ing and fro-ing, our lead had snowballed to almost 9k gold as we’d now demolished 5 of Avant’s turrets. A hectic fight after a botched overcommitment from Gravitas was luckily salvaged as we came away trading four for three and the gold lead took a small indent. Haeri had proved to be the carry of the fight as he flashed in and claimed two Avant lives with an incredible Scatter The Weak.
The next 8 minutes were spent by both teams searching for an opportunity to fight but Avant were caught on the retreat into their base and Raid unleashed fire and fury to send Avant to the grey screen and a strong 2-0 weekend to keep us in finals contention.
We had a chat with Raid after the 2-0 win this weekend
Fresh off our win, @SayRaid gave us a recap, week ahead and thoughts on a cheeky Ezreal performance. #GravitasGlory pic.twitter.com/qUitHJyKjX
— Gravitas (@GravitasOCE) February 16, 2019
