Noxus vs Piltover - March 31st

Noxus finally turns early-game pressure into late-game power, scoring their only win of the weekend.

                                                                         

Team Compositions:

Noxus | Piltover

Top Lane - Swain (Thee One) | Rumble (Pidin)

Jungle -       Dr.Mundo (FrankTheBank) | Vi (fuffychan)

Mid Lane -  Talon (albableat) | Jayce (Mr. Schifftles)

AD Carry - Draven (xSeth) | Ezreal (lorek)

Support -    LeBlanc (xPandaJohnx) | Blitzcrank (MathMage)

Pre-Game Analysis : With a beefy early game, strong CC and strong initiation from Noxus, they could be a force to be reckoned with if they get going. Piltover also had a lot of initiation, but it wasn't clear if they would have enough Crowd Control to really stop Noxus from doing more damage, time would only tell if they could chain together properly.

                                                                           

Noxus finally got in the swing of things against Piltover, using their superior early game to their advantage. First, Swain would grab First Blood on another invade, this time on his lane opponent Rumble to give himself the early advantage. Quickly afterwards, Jayce would be countered with a 3-man gank on himself, leading to a 2nd Noxian kill but Jayce would fight back, getting LeBlanc before he would fall. At the 7:30 mark, Noxus would extend their lead even farther, as the Talon/Swain combo kicked in to high gear with a 2nd kill on Rumble, giving the Noxians a 2k gold lead, but Swain would quickly be shut down by Vi to keep him at bay. 

Swain would continue to go aggressive, scoring another kill on Rumble and heavily shutting down his lane opponent, while Talon would trade kills with Vi, then would get the gank he needed to take an advantage on Jayce with HIS second kill of the match. As the lanes would start to swap around, Ezreal would make his first appearance with a kill in bot lane, despite losing his life, as Vi would get Swain, only to be killed off by Mundo, then Swain would be ganked again, this time with Jayce and Blitzcrank helping out for the kill. After these fights, the match began to slowly mellow out as the teams were looking for the strategies they would need to win the game. The action picked up again near the 20 minute mark.

At this point, both teams would begin to sit at dragon, looking for the right moment to strike. it would end with Noxus gaining dragon gold at 20:30, but a small resurgence from Piltover would allow them to keep it close. As the teams finally looked towards Baron later on, it became apparent that the superior farm scores from Draven and Swain were no match for what Piltover could throw at them. A horrifically timed team-fight on baron led to a Noxian ace and they would lose their first inhibitor around the 35 minute mark. With few more kills to report, the Noxians would rush baron again, this time winning another team fight 4-2 and stayed healthy enough to take down baron, which allowed them to quickly push with the power of Draven, Swain and Talon, winning the match at 44:05.

                                                                   

Final Scores will be updated when I get the VODs, couldn't record at time of writing.

MVP of the Match: Thee One on Swain (Noxus)

Noxus looked in prime form to end out the weekend's games, but nobody looked stronger than Thee One with Swain. Dominating Rumble in lane, picking up crucial kills for the team and leading the charge to victory, Swain was a force in the Noxian's only win of the weekend series.