OMG’s Jungle-Support Braumance: Braum Jungle in LPL

This weekend's LPL marked the first competitive game and the first competitive victory of Braum jungle in one of the five major leagues. While many might expect a seasoned team like OMG to turn up their noses at a gimmick like Braum in the jungle, they exploited the synergy between Braum and Thresh to create a multi-dimensional composition.

Forcing Braum into the jungle and Thresh into the support role paved the way for OMG to also find Kog'Maw's first LPL win of 2014 and simultaneously allowed for spectacular dives in conjunction with Coo1's Zed. While Braum jungle isn't wash and wear, OMG's evident careful planning allowed the pick to shine in a commanding 28 minute game.

To form your own opinions before reading mine, watch the VOD in Chinese or in English.

Champion Select

While the pick and ban phase is typically undeveloped in LPL, OMG made a few flashy plays before the teams even entered Summoner's Rift. Their first move was to ban Sion, and while this doesn't involve any high level strategy, it was an immediate declaration of war against Invictus Gaming. Sion isn't a ban against Zzitai, but a reference to the jocular Amumu ban that went down the last time these two teams faced in the playoffs. IG set it out as a taunt; they didn't need three bans to take OMG down. This weekend, OMG returned the favor.

From there, in a bid to protect YongSoo and his ill-advised fixation with Gragas top, iG banned out Kayle and Jax, two champions that could make Soraka's want to exert map pressure by shoving out minion waves challenging. Then OMG rounded out the ban phase by blocking out the two champions Zzitai has had the most success with: including Lulu and her devastating hard engage reset.

OMG then first-picked Braum, which tricked iG into snatching up Lee Sin. IG likely expected the Lee Sin first pick after Drug's commanding Lee Sin game against EDG and couldn't believe they got a second chance to deny him. They also didn't want yet another one of Zzitai's favored champions removed from the list of options and chose to take the Yasuo bait, which played directly into the hands of OMG's armor-heaving composition. These picks also denied Kitties an early Thresh, which iG usually incorporates into their champion select.

Aside from that, both teams more or less got what they wanted, but instead of focusing on comfort picks like iG, OMG had clearly planned their composition from the start.

Jungle Braum

Let's not mince words; in isolation, Braum is a terrible choice as a jungle champion. His wave clear is lacking, his damage won't eliminate an opponent from the map on its own, and while he has some hard cc, he needs help to activate it and lacks a true gap close to get in range. Drug attempted to compensate with attack speed quintessences before investing heavily into health and resistances, but even so, there was never a point in the first half of the game that illuSion didn't have at least twice Drug's creep score.

Clever forethought prevented OMG from falling behind in the buff securing game, but a slower clear time from Drug's Braum and Gogoing's jungle-following Soraka meant OMG had to make something happen early to prevent Drug from falling too far behind. This is the one point in OMG's game where things went awry.

After picking up a couple kills in a bottom lane fight at four minutes, Drug, Cloud, and Gogoing over-extended, feeding Kid a double kill. Though illuSion died as well, he was better equipped to catch up as Lee Sin than Braum, and Kid's Ezreal gold spike could have meant an early close against a Kog'Maw. Yet OMG's composition had several checks in mind to prevent disaster.

The Braumance

At first glance, san's Kog'Maw looks like the star of OMG's composition. OMG picked three support champions to elevate san to godhood as he shreds through the opposition. Braum provides a wall to hide him, and Thresh gives him a free escape. Not to take away from san, as he played brilliantly, but he took a back seat to Cloud's Thresh and Drug's Braum in terms of star power.

The first time Drug and Cloud went to work occurred around the 12 minute mark. Drug sent Winter's Bite to slow illuSion's escape, while Cloud took advantage of the movement speed reduction to land a Death Sentence. He dove in onto the target and provided the Dark Passage for Drug to follow up with a Glacial Fissure for a powerful initiation.

This combination saw OMG win fights again and again, creating opportunities for dives and immediate assassinations by Coo1's Zed. When the situation grew dire with Cloud and Drug deep behind enemy lines, Gogoing could multiply the armor Drug received with Stand Behind Me using Astral Blessing. All this happened while san was left in the side lanes to farm, effectively making Drug and Coo1 the centers of attention: a dynamic OMG fans will remember from 2013.

The support and extra stats from Cloud and Gogoing nullified the gap between Drug and illuSion, allowing OMG's jungler to come out on top, despite farm discrepancies.

A Dark Passage into the fray wasn't the only boon the combination of Thresh and Braum offered. Throughout team phase, Cloud and san could use their vision granting abilities, Dark Passage and Living Artillery, to locate targets hiding carefully behind walls. Well-positioned Glacial Fissures locked down and slowed the opposition so san could chip at them with his long range.

Perhaps the coolest looking interaction between Braum's and Thresh's kits is the activation of The Box on top of Braum's Stand Behind Me and Unbreakable. The Box's slowing forcefield and the bonus protective barrier from Braum and excessive armor bonus from the interaction between Astral Blessing and Stand Behind Me meant nothing was getting near san's Kog'Maw.

The Fail Safe

Yet gushing about how well Drug, Cloud, and Gogoing ushered in the late game where they worked together to concoct an impenetrable fortress around san's lethal Kog'Maw leaves out a fundamental component of OMG's composition: Coo1's Zed.

Had OMG wanted to invest entirely into a one-dimensional "protect the Kog" composition, some might argue that Orianna or Lulu would serve as a better pick. With san's final score of 10/0/7 on Kog'Maw, however, I think it's safe to say that there is such a thing as too much armor stacking. In addition, as we've already established, this composition wasn't really about san, and, had be been shut down, the game would have involved less Kog'Maw fortresses and more turret diving.

As already established, the combination of Winter's Bite, Death Sentence, Dark Passage, and Glacial Fissure sets up excellent dive opportunities. Aside from being a known Yasuo counter, Zed's mobility and assassination potential makes him one of the best mid laners for dive compositions. If san had faltered and Coo1 stacked early gold, the game may have escalated at an even faster pace. As it was, san became the main carry in large part because of Coo1's efforts.

A hallmark of last season's summer split OMG was deep warding from Drug, then known as Lovelin, and constant pressure from Coo1. These two work in conjunction, as Coo1 can't exert the lane pressure he does without vision of anyone willing to capitalize on shoved lanes. For this composition, OMG picked solo laners adept at quickly pushing minions so that Coo1 and Gogoing would constantly draw attention to themselves.

Though the early game altercation that yielded Kid a double kill wasn't ideal for OMG, it allowed Kid to push down the bottom lane turret more quickly, opening up a free lane for san to farm. Since Drug and Cloud roamed well, providing vision with deep wards in the enemy jungle, the rest of the team effectively forced iG to forget about san's Kog'Maw biding his time as they made as much noise as possible on the rest of the map.

So while Coo1 and Gogoing didn't get a chance to show off nearly as much as san, Drug, and Cloud, OMG's jungle Braum composition relied heavily on the pressure their solo laners could exert as well as Coo1's ability to step up if called upon.

Takeaways

Jungle Braum still isn't an ideal choice for competitive play, but OMG's clever insight found him a place just the same. Drug's jungle Braum only worked out for OMG because of a selection of very specific circumstances.

• A ban phase eliminating top laners that could have punished san or Gogoing in the early game
• Unexpectedly powerful synergy between Thresh and Braum allowing for dives and Kog'Maw protection
• Strong lane pressure exerted by Coo1 and Gogoing in the early game

While it's unlikely that Braum Jungle will become popular in the LPL or in any other competitive league without significant changes, it's worth noting that OMG's strategy was versatile enough to be replicable, and it shouldn't be written off as "cheese." Whether they'll run it again or balk at the false cheddar notes remains to be seen.