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The Oceanic Pro League postseason began on Aug. 22 and it saw Dire Wolves and Order pitted against one another on the first day of matches.
Order hadn’t won a single one of their three games against Dire Wolves during the regular season and the team were eager to reverse their misfortune. But the Wolves ended up running away with the first game in the series thanks to some impressive Irelia play from mid laner Jarod “Getback” Tucker.
In the leadup to this fight breaking out, there had been many feigned engagements from the Dire Wolves. They were waiting for the perfect moment to engage and they found it in the tight corridors of the enemy’s jungle. Brandon “BioPanther” Alexander initiated the fight after teleporting to a sneaky ward and instantly flashing with Neeko’s Pop Blossom active. He managed to land two stuns with the ultimate and a third with his Tangle-barbs ability before popping Stopwatch and letting his teammates do the rest of the work.
The clean up was glorious to watch. Both the Wolves’ ADC and mid laner scored double kills off of the Neeko setup. The Irelia, who had been ganked three times early on and was down in CS, was able to sneak into the bottom side of the fight and let loose a perfectly-timed ultimate. With one enemy trapped and another in range, it was as if the perfect opportunity had presented itself for an Irelia player. Getback dashed between the two enemy champions, using Irelia’s Q dash resets to end with two scalps in the fight despite some fancy footwork from the Kai’Sa attempting to escape.
A decisive teamfight like this in the middle of a match is always hard to overcome and that proved to be true in this case. Dire Wolves went on to take a conclusive first win in the series. But the lower-seeded team eventually overcame the early setback and took the 3-1 series win.
