Going into Week 8 with a 6-8 record, our games against Avant and the Dire Wolves would be crucial in securing ourselves a Gauntlet position. With Sylas globally disabled, Pabu opted for a power pick in Yorick, while Praelus went a little unconventional with a Nocturne pick. Haeri was on Ryze and teamed up with Raid and Decoy on Ezreal and Tahm Kench.
Avant’s draft, however, threw everyone for a loop when they picked Neeko then Jayce in the first round of the draft. After they picked Zac with their third pick, it appeared that Neeko could be going mid while the Jayce and Zac would go top and into the jungle respectively. However, when they rounded their draft out with Rek’Sai and Jax, it turned out that Chippys would be taking the said Jax, Swathe onto the Rek’Sai while Shok would take the Jayce and the Zac would go bot lane to play with gunkrab’s Neeko, an ADC pick that has quickly been rising in popularity.
The game started out pretty quietly, until a 2v2 in the toplane yielded a kill for us onto Jax, but also gave Rek’Sai a kill onto Nocturne. The first Infernal Drake went Avant’s way at the 10 minute mark. Even though Rift Herald went to Avant halfway through the 14th minute, Shok was solo killed by Haeri in the midst of the ensuing skirmish to push ahead with a slim gold lead. Pabu destroyed the first turret of the game at 15 minutes to grow that gold lead to 1.3k
Raid and Decoy got jumped upon by three members of Avant in the botlane, and their deaths gave Avant the opportunity to drop the Herald. Our outer botlane turret fell down, and Shelly got a charge off onto the next turret, but the damage wasn’t too great. In the next teamfight at the 21 minute mark, we failed to steal the drake but picked up three free kills, a few turrets and decisively rotated to the Baron to take that down as well.
Haeri valiantly sacrificed himself to four members of Avant Gaming in order to free up the rest of his team to pursue objectives and we grabbed ourselves a few more turrets. Just before 25 minutes, Raid and Decoy were ambushed by four members of their opposition and fell, equalising the kill count between the teams and at this stage we were only 2k gold ahead. We returned to the Drake pit to try and stop Avant, but they again picked it up, this time it was a Mountain. But once again, we won the ensuing teamfight and killed Chippys and Swathe with a minute and twenty second until the Baron.
The game once again fell dormant briefly as both teams reset and prepared for the inevitable upcoming teamfight. In the choke point between the Baron and raptors, all hell broke loose as Aladoric fell seconds before Swathe did, and with the Avant jungler dead, it wasn’t long before the Baron fell in our favour. Avant attempted to reset and try to take their third Infernal Drake, but we got there too fast and routed them as they tried to retreat.
With everyone but Shok dead, we stormed into the base and took down the turrets, inhibitors and finally the nexus to move to 7-8 and a real shot at a Gauntlet slot.
Haeri gives his insights after the win against Avant
Does anyone else find @Haeri_Oce so insightful 😍?
He spoke to us about yesterday's game and today's game against the @DireWolves!#GRVWIN #GravitasGlory pic.twitter.com/o0X4uAighl
— Gravitas (@GravitasOCE) March 9, 2019
With a win against the struggling Dire Wolves, we could end the week at 8-8 and in 5th place. Pabu, bolstered by his carry-style play the day before, locked in Renekton to try and bully BioPanther’s Jarvan IV. Praelus picked up Rek’Sai while Haeri was again on Ryze. In a surprise move, Raid locked in Vayne while Decoy selected Alistar. UDYSOF for the Dire Wolves would be on Sejuani and would attempt to help Getback’s Cassiopeia against Haeri. In the botlane, Anderu and Corporal locked in Kai’Sa and Braum.
The Dire Wolves picked up a Cloud Drake early on, and also snagged themselves First Blood after a Stopwatch from UDYSOF stifled Praelus’ assassination attempt onto him, and allowed getback to zoom in and take him down. The Dire Wolves started up the Rift Herald partway through the 12th minute, but Praelus snuck in and stole it with a Prey Seeker en route to kills onto Corporal and Getback. Shelly was dropped in the midlane and immediately went to take down the mid outer turret, with a nice bit of gold dropping into the team’s pockets.
We took the Ocean Drake just before 15 minutes, but more importantly four members of the Dire Wolves were caught out and were sent to the grey screen in the ensuing teamfight. Already down almost 7k gold by the 17 minute mark, the Dire Wolves sent getback and UDYSOF to try and gank Haeri under the toplane outer turret, but not only did our mid laner survive, he survived with a kill on the Wolfpack’s jungler to boot. As a four-man unit, the Dire Wolves did take down poor Haeri, but the numbers advantage on the rest of the map worked wonders as we took even more of their turrets
The next big fight was at the 22 minute mark, as Haeri killed off UDYSOF near the Baron pit to free up a Baron attempt for us. In what seemed like a last-ditch effort, Getback and Corporal attempted to make a hero play but were quickly shut down and killed. With the Baron, it didn’t take much for us to walk into the Dire Wolves’ base and convincingly take the final teamfight to win the game and earn ourselves a 5th place spot.
Pabu and Gravitas GM Brandon “Juves” Defina chats about the game
