What we can learn from TFT's victory against NiP:
Countering PA with Medusa

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Despite being a one-way stomp, this game was extremely interesting strategically, especially bearing in mind PA’s huge success in the current meta. She has over 70% win rate in the Chongqing Major Qualifiers despite being first-phase picked in almost every game she’s available.

First of all, it’s worth noting that the caster & analyst definitely didn’t expect the outcome of the game. First, NiP is arguably the mechanically better team. Second, the casters thought that TFT’s draft seems too slow. Medusa and WK as the primary cores of TFT seem to lack enough damage in the early-mid game to oppose PA’s strong timing of multiple Wraith Bands + Desolator. Moreover, Medusa wants free space to farm – she doesn’t like fighting in the early-mid game. Because of these reasons, both casters expected that PA will take over the mid-game and secure the victory. The outcome, of course, was very different.

Medusa is a counter to PA for three main reasons:

• She counters nukers in general. Thanks to Mana Shield, she has one of the highest EHP pools in the game. Unlike squishy supports who are “one Dagger and I’m die”, Medusa requires quite a lot more effort to bring down.
  
• Her ultimate makes focusing her down extremely difficult for melee carries like PA. After Blink Strike, if Medusa activates Stone Gaze, PA will have to retreat, to wait for the ultimate to end and to re-engage. This could be a problem because PA wants to be as effective as possible during her BKB duration.
  
• Last, Medusa is a natural flash-farmer and she is most definitely a harder carry than PA, which means the PA team is playing on a timer.
  

The last point is especially interesting because it’s one of the main reasons the casters said that TFT’s draft is too slow. They imagined that Radiant have to survive the early and mid game and to hope that the game will go super-late when Medusa will be able to out-carry PA.

What happened, however, was very different. The game ended in 27 minutes in favor of the Medusa team.

TFT played the game very smart tactically. They made certain to constantly apply pressure as 4 on the enemy team, focusing particularly hard on the lane (and area of the map) where PA is playing. TFT didn’t necessarily come on top in these engagements. They traded evenly most of the time, and sometimes they even lost a bit more than they gained – PA was able to get good farm and didn’t die even once in the first 17 minutes of the game.

What TFT achieved, however, was to create a lot of free space for Chessie on Medusa.

NiP probably were aware that at some point they would have to take care of Chessie. They likely expected that they would be able to do that in the mid game when PA has some damage items and Axe has his Blink Dagger. What they didn’t expect, however, was the speed at which Chessie was farming:

On the 10^th minute, he had over 100 last hits (!!), when the 2^nd and 3^rd highest were PA and WK with 60 each. Chessie achieved this by farming the lane and the nearby medium camp while also stacking the Ancients and whenever possible farming the large camp. Remember that in this patch jungle camps give slightly more gold.

Medusa had Madness, Yasha, Dragon Lance and Skadi before the 20th-minute mark, Hurricane and Crystalys before the 25th. In a way, Chessie had reached his “late game” before the enemy team even hit their mid-game gank timings, which made killing him almost impossible in practice.

Together with his teammates, he was able to force his way on the enemy HG and after a few unsuccessful defenses, the game was over.

Chessie did have the perfect Medusa game – with a harder lane matchup and with more pressure after the laning stage his job would definitely be harder. Nonetheless, the good thing about the “out-push the wave and farm/stack the jungle” strategy is that it makes it much harder for the enemy team to pressure you effectively. You spend much less time visible and vulnerable in the lane.

Even if Medusa’s game isn’t that perfect, this game plan is certainly viable. Medusa has the potential to survive a couple of mid-game ganks thanks to her ultimate and once she has her first luxury item (usually Skadi), the PA team would be in big trouble even if the PA has similar levels of farm.

Thanks for reading. If you liked the content, check out the other similar analytical articles in our blog!