In their first competitive season at the highest level of European League of Legends, Rogue came out of the gate and fell absolutely flat. Nine games into the 2019 campaign—precisely half of a split—the team had yet to pick up a single win. Even bringing in standout support Oskar “Vander” Bogdan on Friday didn’t help.
But then, on Saturday, just when everyone gave up on them, Rogue came through. Led by yet another crazy, bizarre champion pick from jungler Mateusz “Kikis” Szkudlarek, the team found an early pressure lead against Misfits and, for once, didn’t give it up. He got first blood at just five minutes by counter-ganking the mid lane.
It’s ironic that’s where first blood happened because yesterday, Kikis picked jungle Poppy and he died on an invade into the right side of the map. This play was more about Misfits messing up their turret aggro, but the result was a needed kill for a Pantheon that would fall behind without it.
Misfits were able to stabilize the game somewhat by getting picks for mid laner Fabian “Febiven” Diepstraten’s Ryze. It was their best matchup and Febiven eventually became a huge threat. So Rogue just pulled the trigger when they knew he wasn’t around.
A nice flank with Pantheon’s ult set up Rogue to take an uncontested Baron 25 minutes into the game. And with the Pantheon slowly getting outscaled, it couldn’t have come at a better time.
With the Baron, Kikis used Pantheon’s ult one last time to catch Misfits out, this time behind the inhibitor turrets. After that, Rogue were able to push with the Baron buff through Misfits’ base with little opposition. It was a day full of upsets in Europe—that, combined with a wonky Pantheon pick that Misfits couldn’t have predicted, was enough to earn Rogue their first win in the LEC.
