Positive LCS News

Saint's tristana build/itemization: BEFORE I BEGIN, I WANT TO CLARIFY, Saint played played exceptionally well today his build wasn't the reason LYON lost, but it wasn't helping him either. 1. RUNES - my only complaint here is alacrity instead of bloodline. while it is the only complaint, it is MASSIVE. t3 mid berserkers grants 5% lifesteal, so the 6.75% lifesteal and 85 bonus HP at max stacks has insanely high compounding value. alacrity: 7% lifesteal+vamp (dbow), atk speed +18% bloodline: +13% lifesteal+vamp, +85 max HP and versus poke champs like EZREAL JAYCE, the 7% lifesteal is SUPER noticable. it basically DOUBLES your healing per auto. and there was a lot of chunk happening before objectives. furthermore, tristana's Q is a +120% atk speed steroid, basically the highest in the game. with navori, it's perma uptime. so you really DON'T want to take alacrity when trist has a ton of it from abilities + items. 2. ITEMS - absolutely hate the Kraken slayer. Yuntal is WAY better. they both cost 3k gold, but Yuntal's stats are far superior, granting an extra 5 AD, 5% atk speed, and 25% crit chance. not to mention, +30% atk speed for 6 seconds passive at the start of a fight. if this attack speed gives even a single extra auto during a fight, then it is better than kraken slayer. the only time Kraken Slayer feels better is during the first 15 mins of the game because it has better components and completion spike, but from there it falls off a cliff. the reason for this is you are delaying the hell out of your 75%/100% crit spike. the expected value of an auto is higher with Kraken Slayer from 0-50% crit rate, but there's 2 issues with this: - 1st, kraken slayer's damage is conditional. let's say you land 2 autos, or 5 autos, or 8 autos - then you're getting severely reduced benefit from the item. especially vs Galio who will build Zhonyas, Camille who is mobile, and Jayce / Ezreal who outrange you and shouldn't be letting you auto them. - 2nd, Tristana's E damage scales off of crit rate and crit damage modifiers (IE). At 75% crit no IE, your E damage is increased by 30%. At 100% crit and IE, it will increase the damage of tristana E by 52%. Kraken Slayer does not add any value to this, and in fact delays it by 7 WHOLE MINUTES. Saint had 427 gold per minute, and the item costs 3000 gold. instead of being able to have Yuntal + Navori + Lord Dom's + BF sword (75% crit), we're instead stuck on Kraken Slayer + Navori + Lord Dom's + BF Sword (50% crit) and as a reminder, expected value of an auto =/= real value of an auto. 50% crit is leaving things up to god himself, whereas 75% crit is so close to guaranteeing crits so that THE MAN can take the wheel. not to mention, if he has enough gold, he can instead opt for Yuntal + Navori + Lord Dom's + (Pickaxe & Crit Cloak) which only costs 175 gold more and gives 90% CRIT. or even do some psycho shit like crit cloak + elixir of wrath for 1100 gold (+30 ad, +12% vamp, for a total of 6.75 + 1.5 + 5 + 12 = 25% lifesteal+vamp per auto) if you think a game-deciding fight is coming up. so what was actually built was 50% crit, as opposed to the alternatives of 75% crit or 90% crit, and tons of bonus E damage. the DPS difference is extremely noticable at these crit breakpoints. 3. ALT BUILD - this one might be a bit controversial, but i might have just skipped navori until 4th item. enemy team had Jayce Camille Galio Ezreal Naut, and realistically the only person who will sit there and just tank it is Naut, who really doesn't even matter if you're able to hit him. Camille has E,Q,R mobility, and Galio WILL build zhonyas a better 1v9 build (imo) is Yuntal -> IE -> Lord Dom's -> Navori, if anyone comes near you at any point in your build they just explode. whereas navori is good in continuous fights where the fighting doesn't stop until one side is dead, this alternate build has higher value in fights where multiple rotations are played in short bursts and you get higher value out of your limited # of autoattacks and while I am critiquing Saint's tristana build choices, i want to make it clear that as an NA player and fellow Korean, I am proud of his and LYON's performance today, even if they didn't ultimately win the series. they are the first team to ever make me feel like NA has a chance at worlds, and i'm rooting for them in their next series