META High School Esports kicked off week four of their League of Legends tournament this week, with teams battling it out on the Rift for the top spot in each region.
Going into this week, both Melbourne High School and Catholic Regional College Sydenham (Team 2) remained undefeated. Only one streak could keep that perfect streak going as they battle for the prestigious title.
The game began with a blue side invade from Melbourne High on top side red buff, but with smart warding CRC Sydenham 2 spotted the invade and that gave them an early advantage.
Melbourne High’s bot laner Eddie Smurfie (playing Kalista) opened the match in earnest with first blood soon after laning began.
With constant lane aggression and jungle pressure, the match soon had eight kills at just the seven-minute mark. Six had gone to the now-leading Melbourne High squad. They quite successfully used their advantage in the early game to snowball their lead.
That lead turned into the victory just 22 minutes into the Round 4 match.
Charles, one of the Melbourne High School victors, reflected on their performance in the win, admitting the team “expected to finish it [the fourth-week battle] fairly quickly due to their early and mid game-focused bot and jungle.”
He added that picking up the strongest jungler in Patch 10.11 — Graves — and pairing the “strong and aggressive” power pick with their Kalista-Thresh bot lane allowed them to “create early advantages in skirmishes, which snowballed the game quickly.”
Melbourne’s confidence was also boosted by the fact “they had won all previous week’s games in under 27 minutes,” Charles added. It’s an illustrious status the team wants to see continue long into the META season: “As long as we play to regular standards, we should be able to keep the undefeated title.”
In the South Australia and Northern Territory division, Reynella East College faced off against Glenunga International High School in the second streamed match of the night.
Both teams fought tooth and nail for the win. After 39 minutes, the Glenunga International High School team took the victory and are sitting on three wins after four weeks of play.
In the Victorian Division, Melbourne High School and Elizabeth College are sitting in the top spots with undefeated streaks going into week five of competition.
In WA, Wiletton Senior High School takes the top spot on four wins with Perth Modern School nipping their heels on three wins. Over in SA/NT sees Northern Adelaide Senior College on top with four wins, with Darwin High School, Glenunga International High School, Nazareth Catholic College and Roma Mitchell Secondary College all sitting on three wins.
NSW/ACT teams Kingsgrove North High SChool and The Canberra College (Phillip) are sitting in first on four wins, closely followed by Blakehurst High School, Gungahlin College, St Marouns College on three wins.
Week 5 is just past the halfway mark of the season. The countdown is on for the tiebreakers and playoffs which will start to cross players’ thoughts as the weeks progress.
A new feature just introduced is the Stats Integration, which allows teams and teachers to look at the statistics of players as well as teams. This will encourage players in the league to learn about their personal stats, as well as research their opponents for that competitive edge against them.
For the Melbourne High School team, Charles shared a little bit of the pre-match preparation.
They’ll normally spend “15-30 minutes scouting the enemies op.gg and picking a pool of champs we can play to counter them,” he said. That makes drafting easier for both sides, and means his team can “draft favourably” and build strong strategies.
Each week of matches is an opportunity to put another point against their name.With the new stats integration feature and teams finding their groove, each week is sure to get more competitive.
Make sure to follow META on Twitter for all the High School League gameday news and announcements @METAhse, and follow all the televised League of Legends action every Tuesday evening at twitch.tv/metahse.
VIC Standings
