Recently, Team Dignitas acquired ex-Team FlyQuest marksman Johnny "Altec" Ru as Marksman for the team. Though Team Dignitas has struggled to find all of the success they may have wanted in the first half of the split, Altec has been performing quite well. This article will look at Altec’s Pentakill in Game 2 of the Team EnVyUs series in week 5 of the NA LCS 2017 Summer Split.

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Pentakill at 31:37

State of the Game

Team Dignitas was actually playing with a deficit through the early stages of the short 26-minute game. Due to some great team play from Team EnVyUs, LirA was able to take control of Team Dignitas’ jungle throughout the early game. Shrimp and Keane were caught out in the jungle giving over a slight advantage over to LirA and Team NV. These kills translated into a roughly 1000 gold deficit for Team Dignitas.

However, much of the gold was funneled onto LirA’s Rek’Sai. The recent changes to Rek’Sai’s ultimate gave her some much needed buffs, but mostly to her early game. While LirA shut down Shrimp’s choice of an early game jungler in Elise, Rek’Sai’s scaling into the late game is quite underwhelming. The other early game kill went on to Seraph’s Shen. While Shen does benefit from gold which he can quickly turn into defensive tank stats, Team NV’s scaling composition would have benefited more greatly from passing the gold on to Pirean’s Corki or Apollo’s Xayah.

On the flipside, Altec’s Tristana was able to continuously farm up throughout the early game and even return a kill onto LirA. Similar to Team NV’s team composition, Team Dignitas’ composition looked to scale into the late game. Keane’s Orianna went with a scaling Rod of Ages build, while Tristana naturally scales into the late game with her increased auto attack range gained per level. Despite some early game team losses, Altec’s Tristana kept a roughly 10 CS lead over Apollo’s Xayah as well as a one kill lead. Ssumday’s Kled was also performing extraordinarily well with a CS lead and a solo kill onto Seraph’s Shen. His pressure would be instrumental in Altec’s ability to get off damage and ultimately the Pentakill later on in the game.

Ssumday's solo kill onto Seraph's Shen.

The Set-Up

Team Dignitas was able to claw their way back into the midgame by catching out Team NV overextending during turret sieges. At about 18:45, Team NV were pushing down the bot lane tier 2 when Apollo overstepped past the turret and Big’s Thresh was able to punish this with a Flash Flay. This set up the Infernal Drake and two turrets for Team Dignitas, allowing them to quickly regain pressure on the map.

Team Dignitas was able to take down the Baron with a similar over extension by LirA. Big once again landed a great hook onto LirA which allowed Team Dignitas to win the team fight 2 for 0 and take the Baron at 22:30. Team Dignitas immediately capitalized on this new large gold lead of about 3000 gold, and pressured the mid and bot lane turrets. Altec’s Tristana is now kicking into his late game form, with exceptional pushing power. Tristana’s Rapid Fire gives increasing attack speed, and Tristana can take down turrets quickly by placing an Explosive Charge onto the turret. Paired with a Mountain Dragon and a Baron buff, Team Dignitas easily pushed into Team NV’s base.

The Pentakill

Team Dignitas nearly made the same mistake that Team NV made that allowed them to get back in the game by overextending when sieging the mid lane inhibitor. Looking to finish off the inhibitor, Team Dignitas commits 4 members of the team and lets Altec take shots at the inhibitor. However, Ssumday had just recalled and is walking slowly up the mid lane to regroup with his team. Instead of waiting for Ssumday, Team Dignitas commits for the inhibitor which causes Big to get caught out.

The catch itself was quite good, but the execution of the play on Team NV’s part allowed Altec’s Tristana to take over the fight. Team NV severely overcommitted their resources and used Rakan’s Ultimate, Corki’s Package, and Shen’s Ultimate to catch Big. Rakan’s Ultimate is one of Team NV’s primary engage tools which allowed them to reach the backline in Altec’s Tristana. With this cooldown gone, Altec and Team Dignitas were able to kite backwards without fearing the powerful AoE engage from Rakan.

By this point, Ssumday’s Kled had caught up with the team making the remaining teamfight a 4 vs 5. Team NV again makes a questionable call to use both Rek’Sai’s ultimate and Xayah’s ultimate on Keane’s Orianna rather than Altec’s Tristana. One important factor in this decision is that Rek’Sai can only cast her ultimate on champions which she had damaged previously. Altec had not taken damage from Rek’Sai due to being positioned far back, but Keane’s Orianna was tagged with a Prey Seeker. This somewhat forced LirA to engage on Orianna rather than Tristana. Apollo, however, likely could have aimed his ultimate towards Altec’s Tristana rather than the Orianna. They were both standing at roughly the same distance away from Xayah, so Apollo presumably could have landed the ultimate onto Altec.

To be fair, Orianna was still a priority target for Team NV. Keane was sitting at a comfortable 2-1-2 score line with a completed Rod of Ages and Morellonomicon. A well-positioned Shockwave, something Keane is more than capable of landing, could have devastated the NV team. Yet this may have been the mistake which let Altec take over the teamfight. Despite tunneling onto Orianna, a well-timed Cleanse from Keane allowed him to escape and a perfect stun from Shrimp’s Elise locked Rek’Sai in place. Altec was then able to quickly able to kill Rek’Sai with three crits.

Team NV immediately tried to retreat but Altec would not let that happen. Altec landed three crit auto attacks to kill Rakan, and then took down Shen with an Explosive Charge. I should take a moment to recognize Ssumday’s Kled during this fight. Despite being late to the fight, he successfully tanked damage from Pirean and Apollo while also damaging the frontline of Team NV. His zoning and presence allowed Altec to position so far back and deal damage to whoever walked up. The kill onto Shen would not have been possible in such a short amount of time without Ssumday’s Kled. By the time Altec was attacking Shen, Kled had applied maximum Black Cleaver stacks onto Shen which shredded his armor. Altec did not have a Last Whisper at this point, so getting through Shen’s Sunfire Cape would have taken much more time without the Kled’s armor shred.

From there, it was a series of Rocket Jumps and an aggressive Flash forward that secured the ever so sweet Pentakill.

Altec played these series of fights perfectly. First and foremost, Altec’s positioning was excellent. Despite being the primary objective taker, Altec was positioned the farthest back on the team when being chased. This forced Team NV to walk into his team’s damage and crowd control to reach Altec and deal any meaningful damage to him. Furthermore, Altec kept track of the enemy cooldowns which gave him the confidence to jump forward at the right times during the team fights. He also landed crit after crit in these team fights which amplified his damage greatly.

Altec also played the early part of the game brilliantly as well. Altec was never caught out and kept his farm up despite the team having a tougher time in the early game. He was able to trade back an important kill onto LirA’s Rek’Sai as well as fully utilize his turret taking potential and give much needed global gold to his team.

If Altec can put up a great performance like he did on this Tristana every game, the second half of the Summer Split will look very strong for Team Dignitas.

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