Coaching- Saucy1 D5 EUW Kha'Zix Main Game 2

Analysis by +Mike Hatcher and Patch 8.5

Description-

The Throws... No More

I wasn't able to see the early game of this video due to some weird reply error on op.gg...or it is on my end. But the vod starts at with Saucy at level 6 with a decent lead. So whatever he did early game, he did it right. But I am not looking for what was done well, I am only looking for what was messed up or not optimal. That is were the nutrients for growth are waiting to be consumed. 먹자! (Mokja informal Korean for let's eat) Might as well teach some Korean while I am at it! I will make highlights of his wins in the future, but for now it is all about creating more wins. If you like my stuff don't be afraid to subscribe to my blog, it is free and you can be better informed of when I post!

This is just the unedited game play if that's how you like to roll, the timestamps match this video.

This is a commentated version if you don't want to read! Timestamps don't match in this video :P Also this was made before talking with Saucy, so some information is inaccurate, but the logic is still there ^^

Full review session video with Saucy1 and TL;DR at the bottom

00:27 First outing

This is starting at level 6 at 3/0/0. He is at a really strong start and I believe this game should already be over. So it looks like he just had a successful gank in mid and helped push out the lane. Good call.

He chooses to evolve R first and I must agree with him on this. Since he has a lot of gold and the lead, his presence is needed around the whole rift and he needs to be there to secure his lead. R will definitely help with this mindset.

He sees an easy kill up top and dives without a problem. Well executed. Helps push out the lane, which is right because Yasuo is low and should back and buy. But here is what I don't understand. Why back right at a tower where everyone can see you? Why give away information if you don't have to? This is the habitual game play that loses leads. This is the first example of just doing what you feel and not thinking about what could go wrong. He assumed no one would contest his back...he was wrong. Zac almost took him out, this was a huge risk taken for absolutely no reason. Avoid this kind of game play!

1:25 Second outing

Let's look at the buy. I actually think because of his lead, mobi boots and hammer would of been better. He could finish his warrior in the next back, but right now he has a huge lead and the benefits from mobi boots would outweigh the benefits of a completed warrior in this scenario. Once you have a lead you must adapt your play style to increase that lead and hold onto it at the very least. Saucy added "The power spike of warrior is better and most other players finish their warrior first." I can't fight with this logic and it seems fair.

Understanding the creation of win conditions

He vists top after getting his red and gets another kill. At this point his top laner is fed and a win condition is created around top lane. You have to understand that when you gank a lane and get a laner ahead it is an investment into that particular laner. You have now created a monster that you must follow. Unless they start massively throwing. But in most cases it is always wise to continuously make plays with the people that have leads and the people that can actually make plays work. Trust the other players will understand what is happening and they will play safe and wait for the fed players to snowball the game. This can be assumed in a high elo game.

Great push for 1st tower gold, making that lead bigger! That's what I like to see! After he goes into Zac's jungle to look for something to counter jungle or for someone to pick off, but while he is doing this Yasuo is pinging to engage in another fight, Kha'Zix didn't respond very fast to this ping and because of that some damage to Darius went missing. And we can see after the skirmish that Darius gets away with 1hp. Support the win condition you created, in this case Yasuo. Kha'Zix got him fed and Yasuo wants to engage in a 2v1 vs a losing Darius, this should have been acted upon faster by Kha'Zix. Saucy added "His mindset was to back to spend his gold and Yasuo had different plans" and this happened more throughout the game. Where the different agendas of the players created unnecessary conflicts. It will be wise to figure out how to best handle these inevitable conflicts. My mind is already hard at work trying to solve this.

3:45 Third outing

Okay we have mobi boots! Now is when the game really needs to be reevaluated and all the new factors need to be weighed. This game should be in the bag, Kha'Zix is super strong vs Zac, and Yasuo is fed.

Adaptation of Priorities

At this point farming your own jungle should be the last thing you do. With this lead the 1st thing you should do is get into a gankable lane and get another kill. If that is not an option get into the losing junglers jungle and put him further behind while increasing your vision. If there is nothing to do in the enemy jungle or lanes, take a free objective. If none of those options are on the table, do a full clear of your jungle and back. But that is not what we see Kha'Zix do in this situation, he goes to Gromp. This was actually okay if he did this because he knew it would level him up. If he is not even close to leveling this would have been super inefficient compared with the other possibilities. Always weigh your possibilities and adjust your priorities as the game evolves.

Great reaction to Zac ganking mid, poor punishment choice afterwards. He should have rushed over to kill Zac's Gromp, possibly gank Darius, and then take herald. But the least efficient option was chosen, killing his own chickens. If you are ahead and the enemy jungler just died in Mid, so many safe options just became possible and they must be explored!

The problem with helping a losing lane as most of us know, is that they have a lower chance of winning a fight and that means you might just cause them to die more and you might as well, which would lose your lead that you worked so hard to gain. We see this almost happen when Kha'Zix goes bot. Pings would have been better.

As for the recall in the bush, Lucian did not show any reactions to this, so it is assumed the bush is not warded. Also the wards on the map give Kha'Zix plenty of information that no one is around to help this poor adc. But Kha'Zix must have been shopping and not watching, because a very easy kill was spared as he just backed instead of increasing his lead with a safe play. Even just bursting and getting out would have been a good option at this point. The only reason he didn't do this would be that his R was on cooldown, this is understandable, but the play still could have been made.

7:00 Fourth outing

Reading the other junglers movements

He saw Zac mid and then saw Zac go into his blue side jungle. He rushed in to engage Zac and got a great burst off. This opened the door for a safe herald, these are the plays that make me happy! *Efficiency tip, when soloing herald if you duck under his raised swiping arm you can avoid all the damage and hit his eye.

Here was a miss opportunity. He had a great flank on Trist and even forced her to jump towards his team. He should of gone all in right here and then dropped the herald to have it push mid in for massive gains. He played it too safe right here.

After this he really doesn't have much to do so I agree with his clearing of his own jungle on his way over to Zac's red side. The skirmishing was okay here, but I really think target prioritization needs to be brought up here. So far in a lot of the fights I have seen Trist completely ignored. She needs to be priority number 1. Yes she can jump away. But that is better than her jumping in to get kills. Make her irrelevant and Lucian as well.

Engagement decisions

Here we see a fight happening in mid and Kha'Zix is waiting for the right time to go in. But the win condition he created in top lane has been ignored. Yasuo is making his way down mid and Kha'Zix jumps the gun. He saw an opportunity to take out Bard, but a lot of the time you must let some of these opportunities go. What would have changed with Bard dead? Would that have lead to an ace? Not likely. However what if we would have waited for Yasuo to come, let the team engage or let Zac try something, and then run to the back and snipe Lucian or Trist with Yasuo support. This could have created that ace. But instead the amount of CC the other team had was disrespected and Kha'Zix gave his life away. He thought he could E out before the stun from Bard. But this mindset contradicts the previous mindset that prevented the collapsing of Bard and Trist in mid. Standards need to be set and consistency needs to rise.

11:47 Fifth outing

Herald Decision Making

A nice drop on Lucian, and a great time to use the herald to push a safe lane...but...

A couple times now I have watch Saucy get the herald, totally forgets he has it and then he just throws it where ever once he gets the reminder that it is about to expire. This negligence should not be tolerated. The herald can bring in great swings of tempo if planned out properly. This planning can be done and set while you are killing it.

In this case it could have fully opened mid with a charge to the mid tower. That is good enough for herald, get 1 tower down that is of high priority. As a jungler having both mid towers down is amazing. You can now fully control and black out the enemy jungle. You now have 4 jungles and they have nothing.

His hasty choice to drop the herald in the enemy jungle nets him a death, and a herald that kills a couple minions. This is a huge mistake that massively drops the tempo of this game. Plan everything out!

13:29 Sixth outing

With this purchase his core is complete. Time to shine. Time to win the game. Deleting Trist and Lucy is the main objective. And secondary is supporting the win condition created by ganks in the laning phase.

He takes red, okay. He sees a fight happening in Zac's jungle and makes his way towards the fight. At this point I can tell he does not have a plan set in his mind. Before a fight you should have targets set in your mind. You are not like an adc that just attacks whatever is close. You are not a support that is tasked with peeling and keeping your carries alive. You are not a front liner tasked with engaging and peeling. You are an assassin jungler. Priorities is to make their carries irrelevant from team fights, as long as you can take out 1 before dying that should be enough, if you can take out 2 because of your lead before dying that should bring an ace. Best case scenario you take out both and live, then you can rejoin your team and clean up. This is how Penta dreams are realized.

But what happens here makes me cry a little inside. Duskblade is on the champ, Kha'Zix is super ahead... He rushes into the jungle with his R off cooldown...he is gifted Trist and Lucy on a silver platter...he looks at them...fires his W...and blast cones away. Both of the carries were in perfect position to die. This didn't happen because a different target was in mind as he went into the jungle and the sight of Trist and Lucy caught him by surprise, but if he had them prioritized beforehand this would have led to a different reaction. Times like this is where you should take the risk, because it is an asymmetric return. If you at least chunk out 1 carry, that can be enough to put the fight in your teams favor. So even the worst outcome is better than leaving both alone, completely healthy and able to contribute safely to a team fight.

This could have been an ace that transitioned into a Baron and possibly the game if not multiple inhibs.

On the up side, he sees Zac mid, he gets great deep vision and a pick on Bard that resulted in a free dragon. This is the game play that needs to be conditioned in all aspects of the game, not at inconsistent intervals.

15:58 Seventh outing

So rushing a GA is a pretty decent choice since Trist is pretty fed and the CC of the other team is enough to punish one misstep. It is good to note that when you are the fed person on your team and you dying could result in your team losing...a GA rush is totally okay.

Okay onto the engage in mid. We can see Zac on the mini map, we just saw Darius get soloed by Yasuo and we can see bot duo is in mid with Vlad close behind. Lucy is off defending top tier 2 tower. While Bard is missing. So all these factors need to be seen, analyzed, and then a decisive play needs to happen. Here we see Kha'Zix go for a pick on Trist...he blows her up as she rocket jumps away. But the follow through with this play is what I want to focus on, you have to consider what will happen after you die in some situations. Like here, Kha'Zix flashes away from Zac's E, while Trist was 1 auto away from dying. His whole team is behind him, Yasuo has 30 seconds with Darius dead to free push. What would be so bad if Kha'Zix would have flashed to finish off Trist, the worst he would have died before being able to secure the kill, but his health and lead makes this a very small possibility. However what if he flashed, killed her and then died... well it would be 3v2 in mid until Lucy comes to make it a 3v3. Zac is not strong and Bard is not strong as well, the fight could have been won without Kha'Zix being alive. And if he was alive, the for sure everything would have been fine.

But since he defensively flashes away, Trist gets away and nothing really happens. I see mid and bot tower both dropping at this time if Kha'Zix would have been decisive with his plan to assassinate Trist, the lack of follow through here gifted the enemy another chance to do things better next time.

Preemptive Planning

After doing some rings around the rosy in Zac's red jungle, he gets a nice pick on Lucy. And here we see a lack of analysis on Kha'Zix's part again. When he is sitting in the bard ult he should quickly asses the best route for escape or if he should engage. He sees Bard readying his stun and he does dodge it well, but he has no idea what his next step is, engage or run away. In this case, it is Bard and Zac vs 4 from his team... so Kha'Zix chooses to run down to where the fed Trist is with Darius. He doesn't choose to E over the wall and reset because it is on cooldown(I saw this wrong in the reply :P), but instead he choose to give up his life for nothing. You must constantly be thinking of what your next 2-3 steps are. If you have no idea what you are going to do next and you are just going with the game as it happens. This is what happens. Best words to do better "Don't just play how you feel, always be thinking about how to play the best"

18:20 Eighth outing

*After chatting with Saucy, his intention was not to kill Lucy but to simply kill the minions to defend the tower. I can totally see that now.
He comes out looking to kill Lucy, but instead gives a W to the minions, allowing Lucy to chunk him out. Now the other team knows they can pressure the tower without fear of a injured bug coming int to stop them. A quick look at the mini map would tell him that it would be a 2v2 with him and Vlad vs Lucy and Darius. Vlad is not strong and he is not bursty. So the odds of winning this 2v2 are not too amazing, but since they are by Kha'Zix's tower and he could easily get his full combo off on Lucy before he has time to react, there is a very strong possibility that Lucy could drop before the fight even starts, creating a 2v1. The plan B would be to quick restealth or E away if it doesn't work. But if you are not okay with this risk and it doesn't net an objective at the end of the fight, don't do it.

Target Prioritization

Later we see a fight in the Baron's river. Thanks to man mode Yasuo in bot, this fight is a 4v3 in favor of Kha'Zix's team. We see Lucy drop early. This is where more logical thinking needs to happen. After helping to drop Lucy, during the use of stopwatch the next steps should be plotted. Here he has his R up, which means he can come out and R to kill Trist, but instead he uses it on Bard. If he would have gotten his burst off on Trist instead, Vlad could have cleaned up the fight.

But there was a good follow up to take out Bard later, Saucy1 has a really affection for Bard this game.

After that he farmed his jungle and backed to finish his GA.

20:55 Ninth outing

Yes! A pick to an objective! Looking promising!

Trist is forced to back, Zac is ran down! And Yasuo is doing work down bot. This is when you have to understand the impact of the recent events and what that means for the next decisions. In this case, all signs are pointing to...FINISH THE GAME!

I don't like the chicken killing call here or the dragon killing call here at all. Lulu and Kai have a huge barroned up minion wave crashing into mid. Kha'Zix should have been there to help push. Yasuo got the inhib down bot, so someone has to be dedicated to defending that or the supers will reach the Nexus. But instead Kha'Zix takes what he takes and backs and Yasuo as well. You have the enemy down and you back off. Everyone is at full health, everyone has their core items. What benefit comes from backing at this moment? Only benefit is gained by the enemy team, they are able to take out the abandoned bot duo. If Kha'Zix was there, Lucy and Bard would both be dead and the mid inhib would be as well. This could have been the end of the game.

When I asked Saucy why he chose chickens and not push mid, it was because there were no minion to push and realized that he should have just ran up to mid and wave cleared to get minions to the tower.

23:03 Tenth outing

A fight down bot. This fight was their 2nd chance to close and this was thrown by indecisiveness as well. Kha'Zix and Yasuo pop Zac, and see the other 3 approaching. In this moment Kha'Zix's lack of understanding on how fed Yasuo is and how fed he himself is leads to them losing this fight. Kha'Zix has evolved E. But he chooses to run away after killing Zac. I can understand he is scared but you have to play around the win condition you created. We already saw Yasuo pretty much 2v1 Darius and Zac. With Trist dead, this fight is won. Kha'Zix should have E to burst Trist and possibly finish off Bard, while Yasuo deals with Darius and Zac. Kha'Zix has a GA for this very situation. But this fight goes south and all momentum created by the Baron play is now lost.

25:05 The Eleventh and Final outing

He goes down to help the caught Lulu and Kai and he was able to find an easy pick on Lucy. I can tell that he doesn't have a game plan set for closing out this match. It should be to just focus on take out Lucy and trist to allow for Yasuo and his other laners to easily finish this game. But after killing Lucy he takes his blue...not a high priority target at this point in the game.

Let's think what would have happened if he had the game plan of creating a win condition out of Yasuo and then playing around him to win the game. We see at this point after taking his blue he rushes to help Yasuo but he is too late. But what if he would have gotten the kill on Lucy then instantly decided to support Yasuo's push. In this case it probably could have caught Bard in the enemy jungle and then help to finish off Darius. Resulting in a tower dropping. I know I can keep going on with this hypotheticals but I am trying to drive a point home here. If you create a win condition in the early game and that is on a snowball champion like Yasuo, you need to stick next to that snowball and push it whenever it starts to slow down, keep it rolling, keep it growing! Don't start ignoring it.

In the next fight in mid Zac does a great job of zoning out Kha'Zix. But if you just sit there and try to kill Zac, that is exactly what he wants right? Instead after his ult an escape should be made to re position and once again target Lucy or Trist. But this didn't happen allowing Trist to push up mid.

Now the other team is pushing really hard and Kha'Zix is clearing minions in mid to slow down the push. But minions are not need to take towers at this stage of the game. His presence is needed more. At this exact moment he should have been trying to position himself to take out Trist. If he would have done this, the moment Yasuo got caught, he could have jump onto the tunneling Trist and popped her GA. After doing this he should have once again re positioned to make sure Trist dies and can no contribute anymore damage to the team fight. But this doesn't happen and they all eventually get picked off and the game is done.

TL:DR of this game

A huge lead was acquired. Top was snowballing. And everything was in the favor of Kha'Zix's team. However due to a lot of indecisive plays, the lead was given up and the game was lost. There were around 2-3 opportunities to end the game that were missed due to bad decisions, to either disengage or to farm. Poor target prioritization led to a love obsession with Bard and a ignored Trist. Finally a lack of have future steps planned out lead to a lot of reactionary decisions and habitual game play. This type of game is what tilts people and wrecks lives. Stronger standards are needed to be conditioned into Saucy if he ever wants to climb.