Wildcard Gaming Overview

Finally, it’s done. This piece takes observations from the Giant’s Slayer and PG tournament. The core focus is on WCG’s tendencies (the good and bad), their style, and things they can improve on. It’s not meant to be a story piece so please don’t expect that (it’s me after all). Enjoy.

Early Game

Style — It’s Qwacker Time

Over the last two tournaments WCG’s style has pushed them more towards getting Qwacker an initial lead, especially when he is on his Renekton pick. Teams across PG differentiated on whether blinding Gnar is worth it or not. WCG was one of the teams that aimed to punish Gnar early on and made a real case vs it in the DIGA game.

Three wave build. Jungler comes to dive. Success, find another look and repeat the process. There were games where enemy Gnar was having 3 deaths in the first 10 minutes. It also results in Qwacker gaining TP advantage, allowing him to assist in bot river fights so the playstyle was benefitting WCG.

The cost of this play was putting their bot lane into quite a few weak side scenarios. They get zoned experience and gold while their team finds value in top. The focus then becomes how do they properly stay in the game and provide value. That is where Xeno’s role comes in.

Xeno was placed as a piece to help out bot lane when it got rough, join in the top dives when possible, bring team fight presence as a control mage, and pretty much be a stable force in WCG’s play. He wasn’t just a scaling piece for the team, a priority bot, exc. He had to mold his role into what the team needed to make this style work.

Daption would routinely come mid from base to give vision assistance for both mid and bot lane. Sometimes gives the occasional look if Xeno saw something, though most of the time this would only occur in his Azir games at level 6. Later on in PG, Daption would aim to roam into top to further increase the success of their top plays.

With Qwacker and Panda usually being the strongest players, they force 1st herald routinely to extend the early game lead.

Their herald rarely resulted from swapping their duo lane from base, but shifting up from lane. They are one of the few teams to actually make the top laner begin leashing. The benefit is giving Panda time to keep clearing while reducing the time spent by TeamLuke shifting up. Sometimes the herald would simply be forced right away without even Daption’s move or even sneaked (rare occurrence).

TeamLuke usually was able to make it back to the bot lane to collect some farm. The Xayah pick came in handy for him here to have some extra insurance defensively. Meanwhile, the herald was typically placed for Qwacker’s lane after a gank by Panda. Xeno did not partake in the play often. This led to WCG routinely getting first turret and giving the core lead over to Qwacker.

Qwacker can now find shift timers into the lower part of the map and give confidence in WCG to take 2nd dragon fights with his strength.

In general, it gives a feeling that the players are trying to help each other out to arrive at the same desired early game finish. Not just some disjointed play.

WCG’s play also wasn’t completely surrounding Qwacker always, but taking early skirmishes. Specifically the 1st crab would be a big point for them. Some of the looks were a bit of a flip, but WCG wanted to press for early advantages in what ways they could.

Individual Tendencies in Early Game
Solo Laners

Will compare how they were performing in Giant’s Slayer to PG.

Starting with Qwacker, he would have more common mistakes like fighting on opponent’s building waves, misunderstanding of how far he can trade into his opponent, and even some ability misusage. It created more volatility than was needed.

When he came into PG these kinds of bad tendencies started cleaning up more. He was playing his matchups better and thanks to not making some of the standard top lane mistakes he was able to be a stronger early game force. One core thing he could do better is calling his shift timers strongly so his team doesn’t start fighting without him. It could also be his team not listening to him, but it happened enough that I would side on something Qwacker could do better on.

For Xeno, he would mostly make his lane volatile from the start. Heavy trading in the initial levels that worsen both laners conditions. Trading beyond his creeps so the enemy creeps aggro on him, his creeps remains stationary. Not playing around last hits as much as he should for trading. This can be especially bad when the enemy team wants mid to be in that state (they are playing things like Sylas). It did bleed into the DIGA series. Sometimes it worked out, other times it worsened his conditions to where he lost TP too quickly or like Qwacker put his lane into a vulnerable spot that required attention. WCG didn’t typically place heavy importance on mid so this could be rough for Xeno.

The IMTA series really helped showcase his growth by not making his lane too destructive while giving optional looks to kill Pretty. Their series was close vs IMTA because he was able to make these adjustments from the DIGA series.

Side note, the Twisted Fate game vs CLGA was rather fun to watch. He has a quick trigger for destiny usage, always pulls the gold card, and essentially ports on their heads. He has an itch to make plays if the champion enables it or so it seems.

Another note before moving on is that both these players understand that saving their TP can help the map state later on. Some players will always burn it for themselves to upkeep pressure. Not these two. Could say Qwacker can actually be greedier with his teleport sometimes to grow his lead, but at least playing for the team opens opportunities too.

Bot Lane Laning Tendencies

One partial hindrance to bot lane’s play was giving good trading windows to their opponents. It’s a weird tendency, but from what I have observed TeamLuke is a bit too liberal with his spells to gain minor chip damage. Some of the issues that can arise are listed below.

1. Opens up these trade windows like using Xayah E without much value and now opponents want to fight
2. Burns mana pool and worsen lane conditions. Can lead to dropping creeps or requiring relief to shove out

Other times it was simply stepping too far forward in lane to hit a minion and enemy support punishes it.

A more unfortunate tendency which does not appear as often was simply greeding base or taking bad base positions. TeamLuke has games where he gets lane locked because of this. When the team is playing away from bot it can lead to some very annoying scenarios for contesting waves and giving a free lane over.

For Daption I think he plays a pretty safe style in the lane. However, he has opportunities to actually initiate trades when Panda is going to be on their side which can transfer into more attention for bot. Since this was rarely the case it left their lane in a more wave trading pattern. Enemy junglers putting focus there can find opportunities with it becoming more predictable.

Another thing he should take more notice on is his ward timings around mid. He seems to place around two of three wards off base, even when his team will lose priority in the lanes around him. The end result is the vision being cleared, gaining little long-term value.

Some of the good things coming from the lane was their ability to prevent being obvious plays. They kept their death count low typically. If the wave gets caught, they would look to go through mid first to relieve vs forcing poor 2v2/3v3 scenarios.

Typically gave respect to possible dives vs trying to fight through them. Still finding a way to provide good damage in fights, even though they are down an item. This aspect is a big deal since TeamLuke still accounts as the 2nd prime damage dealer after Xeno. Both Daption and TeamLuke show confidence in fights, pressing forward to get that value.

And of course, helping secure heralds to snowball the early game.

Panda

Like most junglers in the AM/academy scene, there is a higher preference to assist lanes than to play for themselves. The one champion where this is least likely is on Udyr since he clears out so quickly.

It’s not necessarily bad since in Giant’s Slayer he kind of had to do it this way. Otherwise, his laners become free plays where the farm advantage doesn’t translate to much. However, knowing how to be greedy as a jungler in this meta is important still. A good jungle team can wrack up a big advantage which forces the enemy jungle’s attention constantly.

One rather good thing he does is bringing up his camps as plays for his opponents. Can see laners moving to check, ward, and defend them. It’s rather key to play the lane assisting style since it can reduce the lead built by the opponent jungler. Other AM and even academy junglers do not do this.

One common issue he kind of has that other teams who don’t play around mid often is not going directly through the lane enough. Can result in reducing some of the effectiveness of the herald plays and open himself up to fake priority in mid (his mid doesn’t have push just yet). It also reduces the reps of looking for plays in mid. Basically, losing missed opportunities.

Regardless, he seems to exuberate confidence in his decision making and forcing skirmishes. Appears to bounce back pretty quick from plays not going his way which helps prevent snowballing games from dying out completely.

Extra Tips

Each laner can do a better job talking about their conditions sooner in lane. What I mean by this is knowing when their lane is in a bad state, when their opponents are in checkmate, and summoner differences to leverage. There were plays missed by Panda because most likely laners aren’t bringing these up early enough.

By not also pre-communicating this information, it can result in actions of other lanes not being aligned. League is a difficult game when all players aren’t on the same page to the game state.

It’s also why some of the herald swaps appear to not be ideal since bot lane conditions are not called out enough. If a jungler says “going to do herald” without any other information brought up it leads to well… a herald and possibly a lane getting sacked. Could try to fish for another timer that lines up better.

Finally, a team tendency is realizing when an objective is unneeded and using their opponents time placed on it to leverage more gold on the opposite side. Forcibly contesting some of the 2nd dragons wasn’t worth it.

Post Laning Phase

This is where WCG really starts becoming like their name. You won’t find them being a stable, play by the books team. It can definitely hurt them, but also sometimes gives them an edge over academy teams who do try the former playstyle.

Mid wave timers

The main aspect to look at is what mid waves and neutral objectives do they like to contest. The answer is, most of them.

The positive side of this play is their approaches. Panda is usually the one flanking and yes… this includes being on picks like Udyr or Olaf. It’s a little weird, but seems to work. He knows where to dodge vision. Wait to ambush his opponents. It has surprised a lot of opponents trying to approach their own top jungle or mid waves.

Another is when they group mid before their opponents thanks to skipping out on waves and their opponents opt to contest the mid wave still. WCG are fast to jump on these situations, even if it results in trading out some of their own players to make it work. The team has confidence in their calls unlike others. There isn’t a sign of hard tilt if it goes wrong. Reset, aim for the next play again. It’s partially why it worked out well for them in IMTA game 2.

Finally, WCG aim to wrestle quick control of mid and dive straight into their strong side of the map. They reinforce the area and can find them ignoring to retake their weak side portion of the map. It catches their opponents off-guard to find WCG collapsing on the side laner pushing out or fighting on their opponent’s retake attempt.

Now onto the more negative side of contesting mid waves often.

The main problem with this idea is sometimes the conditions are simply not good for WCG. There isn’t an actual good reason to take the fight, but they will try anyways or at least position in a way that makes it seem like they want to contest. So even with the early lead it can mean nothing with numbers disadvantage or cooldown differences.

The way they can correct these scenarios is identifying which waves they want to actually fight on in mid. It can’t be all of them because every time you pull members there it results in side laners dropping farm. If you didn’t watch a single WCG game and only looked at their lane control state… you could tell they drop creeps in side often to force fights. Sub-49% control is not ideal.

It also would help if the solo laners were more adamant about getting their pushes off before forcing into mid. Granted, WCG do not make this kind of error all the time. They do make the ideal group timings, but that inconsistency hurts them over the course of the entire game.

Lane Assignments

Next is how their lane assignments are done. There seems to be a disconnect with where each player wishes to go. In particular can find Xeno teleporting to the wrong lane off base or even unnecessarily TP to where he is pushing before his team is set up. Their tempo doesn’t match. The issue most likely comes from solo laners not talking enough with each other on what matchups they want and creating the necessary dialogue.

In essence, their decision making after a play ends are a bit faulty. The next objective identified into the actual preparation phase is lacking.

Tempo

Tempo is king, or so most would say. WCG break this rule a little too often for extending plays on the map that bleed into their opponent’s timers. These kinds of plays can have horrendous effects due to waves not being properly set up for WCG. This further gives confidence that their reset phase after making plays isn’t consistent enough yet.

Regardless though, there is some upside to their thought process. WCG realize that sometimes they simply need to grief their tempo to make a play on enemy laners setting up side waves. If they take matching bases then their opponents will simply roll them over with initiative. Some teams prefer laying on their sword, not WCG.

Team Fighting

Next comes team fighting, a very core aspect of league of legends across any meta. WCG team fighting is a bit wild. The one thing they lack the most is consistent targeting. There can be multiple split fights where the front line is purely focused on diving enemy backline while WCG’s own backline takes a beating.

The first two IMTA games were actually a lot better played for fights wise because of how their comps were shaped. Varus with Viktor/Veigar were letting IMTA approach first while picking off the enemy front line one at a time.

It started becoming iffy when they overreached like Panda’s Graves diving in too quickly. A natural tendency to their usual comp style.

Also, simply having core carries talk about what they need to properly fight goes a long way for their front line’s decision making. Item advantage or disadvantages, summoner spells, and how the team should change up their fighting style to allow them to deal more damage. How deep should they press, who is dealing the most damage and requires peel, and who to mark? Really makes a big difference vs following through one engager’s call.

Some Extra Info on Mid-Late Play
Qwacker

1. Qwacker, like Xeno, can work on knowing how far he can push before moving into mid. If he holds a lot of the early game strength he should not be routinely shifting into mid and giving breathing room to his opponent.
2. Next, I can’t tell if he is communicating it well enough… but it feels like he is not calling his shift timers strongly enough. WCG will fight before Qwacker can get there. Sometimes Qwacker has to burn his TP to arrive which is unnecessary. Feels like that early game tendency follows through into here.
3. A small thing is prioritizing stridebreaker first vs his slice and dice. It’s a little habit I observed.
4. For fights, he needs to ensure he doesn’t over chase enemy core carries and knows who to target. It can reduce his effectiveness while taking far more damage from being kited. Even on Malphite this was the case at times.

Panda

1. Panda’s eye for flanks and ambushes is great. Sometimes he should not be the player doing it though. It’s better if Qwacker or Daption took this position so Panda can focus on the front line.
2. He also needs to be mindful of how far he pushes into fights. Keep eyes focused on who the target is near for core carries.
3. Ensure he is not sacking his team’s tempo to do camps or at least talking about it. It’s a common issue for junglers to have and work on. If not done properly, it can really hinder advancement of the map
4. Not making plays off-tempo when unneeded. His team needs to collect waves and these play calls again can have some bad backlash. What would help is having the solo laners pickup responsibilities during the reset phase to help tame some of these looks by Panda.
5. Want to say that what I love about Panda is his eye for punishes. Once he makes the read it looks like he calls it out right away for the team to act on. It’s almost being like a maniac at times. Teams need that. If his teammates can see them too and possibly also know when certain ones aren’t ideal then will bring more balance to WCG’s play.

Xeno

1. For Xeno, if he opted to keep playing it would be best for him to place focus on side laning. Knowing when it’s good to slow build a wave and then fast push next. It helps give a buffer to being in danger while collecting another wave without cover.
2. Next is a small thing as well, but just looking at Azir shuffle directions. There are some that if he changes the angle a bit it will result in a won fight.
3. He actually finds good team fight damage so that aspect of his play is nice.

TeamLuke

1. For TeamLuke, he can do a better job realizing how far up he should contest mid waves. It’s a common ADC problem that you can find even in major regions. Check where side lanes are, where are your teammates, and then decide how safe it’s to catch. Reevaluate after each wave. Sometimes it’s good to cheat it, but to always contest up front makes it too easy to plan on. It’s partially why some of the Varus games became difficult for a bit.
2. Next for TeamLuke is more of a Xayah specific thing. Defensively, he uses his ultimate rather well. Dodges things like Gnar ultimate, exc. However, he doesn’t realize when it can gain more value offensively and when to hold onto his feathers for higher value vs instantly releasing them. It’s small, but would help a lot down the line.
3. Threat detection is a big one for most core carries and something that can always be worked on. When not on Xayah he may be a bit too loose in his approach. Knowing how to navigate around his teammates will help reinforce his fighting prowess and specifically knowing how far he should dip out before going back in.

Daption

1. For Daption, his fast warding tendency follows him a bit in mid-late as well. Knowing when it’s good to spit out wards and fast reset vs holding on for better timers is a big deal. Teams lose games all the time because they put little focus on the vision aspect of the game. Sweeper timers, ward counting, pink buys. It adds up.
2. Will praise Daption for improving his eye for engages. Never would have imagined him playing like this before the AM circuit. He learned quite a bit and has kept improving. Almost want to say he was the most consistent when it came to fight approaches for WCG.
3. One thing he could start building on is finding his own flank and ambush angles. He may group up a little too much with Panda which reduces the pinch options. Support can get away with these kinds of plays a lot more than any other role. He has improved the engaging aspect. Time to step it up one more notch.

That’s about it. WCG were a fun team to observe over the course of the spring circuit. They are a tenacious bunch who always brought a fight. They came so close several times to winning over academy teams. It’s a great start for them. If they can tune up certain aspects like tempo reading, condition callouts, and carry requests then they will get over that hump. Definitely not your run of the mill 13th seed team.

Image is not mine, it’s owned by the Wildcard organization.