Fun Plus Phoenix Claim The First Spot For The League World Championship 2019 Finals Over Invictus Gaming

Fun Plus Phoenix Claim The First Spot For The League World Championship 2019 Finals Over Invictus Gaming
Credit: Riot Games via Youtube

Today, Fun Plus Phoenix showed immaculate gameplay during their semifinal series against former world champions, Invictus Gaming.

After dominating the LPL, many analysts predicted Fun Plus Phoenix to quickly get out of groups and defeat most of the teams outside G2/SKT. During the group stages, FPX fell into a slump and was almost kicked out of groups by Splyce & J-Team, but they managed to recover during the second week and secured a quarterfinal seed. After convincingly defeating Fnatic, they were expected to easily defeat Invictus Gaming as well, who showed signs of weaknesses going into the match.

Game 1. The DoinB show. FPX picked comfort champions for the entire team, while IG replied with comforts on their own, except Varus, who recently resurged into pro play. Based on the draft, IG was slightly favored with the counter match-up top in Quinn against Renekton. During the early game, Renekton was getting bullied, but while he was struggling to farm, his jungler was pressuring the mid lane and securing advantages for the Rumble. Doinb managed to snowball his early lead and started invading alongside his jungler to achieve vision. With vision around all the objectives, FPX managed to catch IG out of guard and secure kill after kill. The counterpick Quinn up top lane was neutralized by mid-game, and FPX pushed to win after taking the baron.

Game 2. The base race. IG secured Gragas/Varus as the previous game but changed the other three picks, while FPX completely changed their draft outside of Nautilus, except this time he went to mid lane instead. FPX was very dominant in the early game, securing first drakes & enemy red and blue buffs. While they were dominating in kills, IG was trying to dominate by out farming the FPX members.

Due to the nature of the comp of FPX, it was hard for them to siege the IG line up, so they were trying to set up flanks and ambushes, which were most successful. After FPX took the baron, they went to secure the Elder, where IG’s jungler, Ning, stole it. Even though IG had the Elder Dragon buff, they were decimated by the FPX squad, with only Rookie remaining alive. Rookie decided to push the mid lane instead of going to defend against 3 FPX members, which forced the FPX members to retreat not to lose their base. With the middle lane of FPX exposed, IG managed to secure an ambush and catch out the mid laner, Doinb. Without Doinb, FPX fell to IG, with the ad carry, Lwx being the only one alive against three members of IG. While IG went through the mid lane to finish the game, Lwx used his teleport bot lane to try to finish the game on his own. Two IG members backed and defended their nexus while the mid lane Rookie finished the game in favor of Invictus Gaming.

Game 3. Nautilus was prioritized by FPX 3rd time in a row alongside Qiyana after showing great success during the previous two games. IG prioritized Gragas for the 3rd time in a row for Ning. The early game was heavily one-sided towards FPX with their jungler invading the jungler of IG and denying him farm and surprise gank opportunities. FPX got all the objectives and completely rolled over IG during the 3rd game, a complete change of pace compared to the previous two games.

Game 4. To the surprise of no one, Nautilus was picked up by FPX again for the 4th time in a row, a mistake that would cost IG the game. IG got wholly rolled over in the early game on every lane but managed to stay in the game by securing a couple of drakes and baron. While IG’s setup relied on the Shy reaching level 16 on Kayle and the scaling Kai’Sa of JackeyLove, FPX had the perfect response in Nautilus, who was able to CC them during every fight and deny their synergy of Kai’Sa jumping in with invulnerability. After securing baron and wiping off IG near the Baron pit, FPX pushed to win and secured a trip to the World Finals!

The MVP of the series was Doinb with his spectacular performance on Nautilus for three games and one game on Rumble. Even in the game they lost, he played exceptionally well and almost carried his team to victory. He was hyped up coming into the World Championship, and rightfully so, he showed the world why he and his team were dominating the LPL season.

Tune in tomorrow at the Riot broadcast channel for the second quarterfinal between G2 and SKT!

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