Good Morning Readers!

Welcome to the 4th edition of The Weekly Classic, where we’re going to take a deeper dive into what happened in Week 4 of the Advanced League, what we can expect in next week’s games, and some looks at the general rankings of the teams in this league. My name is Ulrum, and I’ll be taking you all through this bit by bit each week, but feel free to message me in the discord server or hit me up @UlrumLoL on twitter for additional updates throughout the week.

Joining Ulrum for the predictions and power rankings is me, Guster Posey! I’m excited to contribute to the Weekly Classic! Likewise to Ulrum you can find me on twitter @GusterPosey or here on discord.

Game Results:

Nameless Goobers 2-1 NWE Penguins

Game 1: NWE Wins

What better way to abuse the adc centric meta than to stack another adc on top? Hell, who needs a traditional support either? Just two ADCs, a Heimer, and some front line. What was anyone supposed to do? All jokes aside though, I think this is a really interesting draft, even if I think that a few adjustments from NG could have made the draft difference go the other way.

Game 2: NG Wins

I refuse to type out the name of this mid laner, but great Oriana game! You love to see mid lakers who actually follow up on the engage effectively, and who better than the queen of mid lane wombo combos herself? This was a really competitive looking game all around, but ultimately, two ADCs were not enough to beat NG this time.

Game 3: NG Wins

I won’t lie. Normally I’m not a big fan of Graves, but I actually like him in situations like this, where the reality of the matter is that full clearing and standing toe to toe is the way to get ahead. Pair that with a few great engage ults for Sylas to steal and you have some really cool potential moments. There was, of course, a pretty scary Darius on the side of NWE, but in the end, it just wasn’t quite enough.

Lit Esports Red 2-0 Mint Rocky Road

Game 1: LIT Wins

I don’t really like the Renekton or Taliyyah picks here. This really feels like the sort of team comp where just having a tank’s hp bar means you have a solid chance of getting past the main damage sources of MRR.

Game 2: LIT Wins by Forfeit

Boo. Boring result. Oh well.

TA Nebula 2-0 Oversoul Esports

Game 1: TAN Wins

My biggest problem with people picking Mordekaiser has always kind of been that the champ is used in the wrong types of games. Morde is best in my opinion when pressing R places your team into a winning 4v4, and is particularly good when there are multiple targets that can land you that result, because it forces multiple members of the other team to pay their taxes.. Looking here, though, I just don’t think that anything short of a perfect Taric ult gives this team the 4v4 advantage, so what you have is a situation where you have to find picks instead of manipulating your teamfights around objectives, which feels sub optimal.

Game 2: TAN Wins

To OE’s credit, I think this was better. If Morde presses R on anyone but Heimerdinger, the fight is heavily changed, and as a result, you can see three QSS taxes paid. I would really love to have been able to see how this game finished out, but unfortunately, I was not able to catch this one. Great job to TAN for being able to close it out in spite of these huge kill totals, but I also want to give that credit to OE for improving from Game 1 to Game 2.

Dorado Gaming Tau 2-1 The Crabs Radiant

Game 1: DoGT Wins

I hate Karthus jungle with a burning passion, so of course I’m happy with this result, but more specifically I feel bad for this Ornn. Being locked into a 1v1 with Olaf with essentially no hope of any kind of jungle help is rough, and it’s pretty clear what the end result was.

Game 2: CRAB Wins

But this is what happens when you simply turn that back around. Grabbing literally any amount of help in top may not have made this a massive winning matchup for Ornn, but it absolutely meant that Olaf couldn’t just run over the matchup for free. Add in about three doses of heavy scaling and a ton of kills onto the blue haired menace and you have your end game strats too.

Game 3: DoGT Wins

As much as Morde and J4 look tanky, neither one is really a true tank, and that really starts to show when you have a hyper fed poke champion like Jayce laying out these kinds of numbers. Playing Jarvan into a Poppy is also actual nightmare fuel, and has never even once felt like a fun matchup. 

UR Esports 2-0 TDK Blue

Game 1: URE Wins

Every time I have ever seen a fed Kassadin, the same thought has crossed my mind. “If only you could have stopped him from ever hitting level 6.” This was an absolute solo lane thrashing coming out from UR Esports, with CKG and G1naxi smashing the competition. There really wasn’t a person to pull this one back, especially with Veigar and Aatrox being a few thousand gold behind their respective opponents each.

Too bad this team cheated. Would have been cool if they were actually playing this well while at this level. Shoutout to the 

Game 2: URE Wins

Not to be outdone, UR Promise apparently decided that Game 2 was their turn to shine, pulling out ten kills on the Varus, probably because it’s embarrassing for a Grandmaster player not to be the carrying influence on the team. I like the ideaof most of TDK’s comp, though I feel like it would have been a bit more cohesive with a better frontlining option in the top lane so that they could commit more effectively to the teamfight comp. Still, there is no substitute for simply playing better, and it seems like URE did just that this time. Shocker, I know. The cheating team won. Congrats on the free 2-0 for TDK.

Akumas Katanas 2-0 BCS Younglin’s Kittens

Game 1: AK Wins

Picking up their first win of the split, Akumas Katanas had a really cool composition here, with the classic J4/Galio combination backed up by the Kled speed boost and the Jinx damage, though I suppose I should also say the Bard damage given that Trade pulled out a scoreline of 7-2-11 here against a team that otherwise should have been able to outdamage and rush them. 

Game 2: AK Wins

Normally, I am skeptical of these sort of single target pick comps, but I am a firm believer in the idea that if you’re going to go for a strategy, you should commit to it, and AK did that very well here. There was realistically no way of stopping the main damage sources of AK from getting back onto Younglin, and it really shows as Kimchi On Rice showed us what a good Camille can really look like here.

Dorado Gaming Alpha 2-0 TA Blaze

Game 1: DoGA Wins

I hate Bel’Veth so much.

I have to begrudgingly give credit of course to Ritty here, who outscored the entire other team combined for kills and had multiple thousands of gold over everyone else in the game regardless of team. There is truly nothing fun about playing out that situation from TAB’s perspective, but there was at least a bit of life showing from the Aurelion Sol in the mid lane.

Game 2: DoGA Wins

How does one properly stop a Darius? One kills him nine times and puts the slicy lizard boy out front, daring anyone with a health bar under 4k to come within a screen length of him. WHO FKN ASKED was able to at least go even on the Jinx here, but against a 13-0 Leblanc, even an ADC in this current meta is bound to have a bad time.

Comfy Gaming Shield 2-0 Horizon Gaming Rats

Game 1: CGS Wins

The man, the myth, the legend. The walking R button. The caster minion who learned to hate. Karthus jungle may be the least fun, least interactive jungler in the game, but if you don’t deal with him properly, you definitely have a problem on your hands. Plus, handing any ADC 10 kills is just asking to make your life worse all the way around. 

Game 2: CGS Wins

Deciding that maybe the R key would be more fun if it involved monkeys and a power pole, PUNJABI MUNDA comes up huge once again, this time with great setup and damage for a solid teamfight comp. I like seeing these variations out of teams, and this was definitely a well deserved win from CGS.

Vaporwave Resonance X-X OC Esports

TBD

USC JV X-X CB Diamond

TBD

Next Week’s Predictions

Group A Games:

Game 1: Dorado Gaming Alpha vs Bing Chillers Younglin’s Kittens - 2-0 DoGA

A dominant performance from DoGA and a surprising 2-0 loss from the Bing Chillers means that Dorado comes into this one as the favorite, and if they can keep it up to where the whole team is popping off like they did against TA Blaze, Dorado looks really strong and looks to be hitting their stride.

Game 2: Akuma Katanas vs UR Esports - 2-0 AK

Due to the Competitive Ruling, Akuma Katanas will be picking up the win.

Game 3: Nameless Goobers vs TDK Blue - 2-1 GOOB

TDK definitely had some interesting draft ideas in their series against AK that contributed to the loss, but the Goobers look solid against the Penguins. They did drop a game to Moonstone Ezreal mid but came back swiftly and took care of business, this one should be a dogfight.

Game 4: OC Esports vs Team Ambition Blaze - 2-1 TAB

*OCE has yet to play their Week 4 match as of this writing.
Blaze had a rough series against Dorado Alpha, but I can’t imagine that this roster will stay in this shape for this long. This is OC’s time to shine and climb their way towards a playoff spot.

Game 5: NWE Penguins vs Vaporwave Resonance - 2-0 VAP

*Vaporwave has yet to play their Week 4 match as of this writing.
We’re waiting to see what Vaporwave looks like coming off a loss, but the Penguins are still searching for their first series win, and I don’t expect it to come off VAP.

Group B Games:

Game 1: Team Ambition Nebula vs USC JV - 2-1 TAN

*USC has yet to play their Week 4 match as of this writing.
TAN just keeps going, swapping roles and still finding ways to win, while they did drop a game to Crabs Radiant, their match streak is still alive and well. I do expect USC to make this a good match though, but it’s always tough to prep and draft against TAN.

Game 2: CB Diamond vs Comfy Gaming Shield - 2-1 CGS

*CBD has yet to play their Week 4 match as of this writing.
The Comfy Shield is looking more and more like the real deal here as we approach the halfway point of the season, taking their series against RAT in convincing fashion. This series against CB should be a good one. Can CB’s top side slow down Punjabi Munda? Or will the Comfy Shield smother another opponent?

Game 3: Lit Esports Red vs Horizon Gaming Rats - 2-1 RAT 

Lit is keeping it real, taking a game off Mint before a Forfeit for the other game came out, putting them in a playoff spot, now they have to prove they belong against another team in a similar spot in the Rats. I like this matchup a bit more in the Rats favor, and even in their loss to Shield The Fox had a lot to say in the jungle.

Game 4: Dorado Gaming Tau vs Oversoul Esports - 2-0 DoGT

Sev3rd and Arch seem like the pair to beat if you want to beat Dorado Tau, and I don’t see Oversoul finding much success in this matchup. For Oversoul to win they need to find a way to keep Mid and Bot down.

Game 5: Mint Rocky Road vs Crabs Radiant - 2-0 CRAB

I had faith in Mint but they keep betraying it. Maybe MartialArts can make a difference here but I think it’s time for a Crab Rave and for Crabs to stake a claim towards that last playoff spot.

Players To Watch Out For

Here we’ll take the opportunity to discuss some players who have had standout performances, or who may be important to watch out for in the upcoming week’s games. 

Standings and Power Rankings

This is where a brief discussion regarding the current state of teams in both of the groups are doing. Some notes regarding player/roster moves, current team trajectories, and any changes in the standings belong in this section, which will inevitably couple with the predictions to annoy players.

Group A Standings/Power Rankings

*VAP and OCE haven’t played their Week 4 match as of this writing.

Group B Standings/Power Rankings

*USC JV and CB Diamond haven’t played their Week 4 match as of this writing.