The Off-Meta Build That Broke Korean League of Legends

In the esports history of Korean League of Legends there was one moment that will always be remembered. When a no-name challenger team brought Heimerdinger of all champions on to the worlds stage picking him against future Legends of the game. This was an Off-Meta Build to top all other offmeta creative strategies and today I'm going to break down exactly what happened. This is the story of how GSG beat CJ Entus in Game 5 of the NLB 2013 Winter Finals.

[gbay]

Been wanting to tell this story for a while. Of all the Off-Meta Builds (or strategies) in the history of League of Legends this has to be one of the most iconic. If you were around back then and following Korean League I'm sure you remember it. I hope you guys enjoy :)

[TeaCat]

This is not only a nostalgia for older League fans, but also interesting story for newer league fans like me. Thank you for telling this story, Gbay!

[chriscobble]

"League of Legends makes no sense."
That single statement pretty much sums it up 😂

[NeverEverClever]

For newer players: This heimerdinger was even more toxic than you can imagine. His rockets werent a skill shot in the normal sense, he would just send out 3 rockets to the 3 nearest targets without having to aim, meaning that his poke wasnt dodgeable and even had a better base damage, while the ap ratios sucked. His turrets didnt have the beam attack, but their autos and durability were stronger in the early game, making them easier to push with and better agains towers. His passive aura would slowly heal everything around him, his lane minions, his turrets and his teammates (and even his teams structures like towers and inhibitors got the healing), making this 4 man squad very sustained and hard to harass out of lane. Imagine everyone on his 4 man squad gets 2 rejuvenation beads for free.
This means, on this push, the enemy team had to endure a blue buffed heimerdinger that could deal undodgeable poke all the time. Meanwhile the enemy just heals away the poke you deal, and even the enemy minions take more damage to kill than usual. Pure gold, if it wasnt such gambling that you had to win the game in 15 minutes.

[omarpokemon]

The way Gbay makes any league story sound so heartwarming and filling is incredible. Love the content.

[LeopoldDuck]

I've been looking for this match for like 2 years. I thought it was lost to time. Thank you for posting this. Watching this live was so brilliant. It was a meta shock that was like season 1 meta chaos.

[SunsetRadi]

I couldn't stop laughing when everyone just fucking ran down mid breaking everything, it's just so unbelievably stupid and somehow they made it work so well
Damn this game is amazing

[AnakinTheWeird]

Of all the off-meta games you've highlighted, this one has to have been the most infuriating to play against...

[TheNeonLynx]

3 Things I feel are underrepresented here:

1st Towers back then were soo much thinner and gave more gold than towers today excluding plating. At that time Towers were so weak that riot had to do multiple hotfixes to buff them after these kinds of Strategies suddenly started appearing.

2nd Season 3 Dorans Items are way way better than they are today. 2 or even 3 Dorans items were not uncommon even for people playing ranked. Given the amount of money they would have in that game from the turrets alone they could have easily outbought their opponents however Buying Dorans was just better given you intend this to be your last back before the Game is over.

3rd This game had impacts way beyond this team itself. A while after this game Happened I remember in EUW people have figured out how to pull this stuff off in normals. perfecting it to the point where teams would win the game at minute 9 occasionally. The changes were (If I remember correctly) replace TF with Sona and then you would 5 man Top Until you get the first tower and only after that Olaf would start Roaming. These changes happen for a few reasons: First these games were not against pro players so Pushing toplane is more effective since it takes Those players longer to react - by the time they show up the first tower is usually gone like 3 minutes into the game and second the change from TF to Sona was because tf doesnt provide much for this teamcomp. Sona however back then would increase EVERYONES Attack damage by having Q passive active. So anyone in the push comp had about a longsword of extra AD (at lvl 1 permanently) and her passive triggers on towers making the push even faster despite not helping with the wave.


In conclusion while this is a nice summary of the game it seems a few things related seem to have been forgotten

[RawBerserker]

2 in one week?! My boy is *BLAZING* . Thank you for these blessings

[trashheapian]

One brilliant detail of this strat is that in those days of LoL, there was no better botlane than EzSona, bc their Es ensured they were basically unkillable with the move speed and blink escapes. They also, like today both scaled really hard. Of course CJE snapped them up when they were left open. Their one weakness? No shove power. They could not match the objective shoving of GSG, and never got their time to scale. Now its arguable wether CJE shoulve ever bothered sending cho and sona to mid. They prob shouldve just played the game out as normal on their end, but you have to respect just how calculated every step of the plan was.

[erys]

also shout out to SoLo now called Heart, current head coach of Hanwha, ex-coach for RNG during their golden road (LPL & MSI) and also ex EDG!

[gerrimeister]

That Picture of Papasmithy and BabyTime is amazing.

[pipekrub]

You deserved way more views on your videos. Top notch quality.

[Gnagbnmag]

I never thought GSG this would be showcased here, I first saw this 7 years ago, I wanted them to make a name for themselves. Thanks Gbay99

[daisychain]

To some extent, the "4 ppl being an annoyance offmeta while the jungler powerfarms" is what Gigabyte Marine did against Fnatic with Levi's Nocturne at Worlds. I think there's real potential to that part of the strat, even if the plates made the old strats mostly irrelevant.

[boe]

the old Shurelya's on Olaf is such an amazing detail you missed, it's absolutely brilliant

[kelsokelso]

I haven’t played league in years but watching your videos makes me teleport back to the good ole days when I was obsessed with the pro scene and it’s the only content that makes me miss it as much as this. Love everything your doing, you deserve a ton of support from all the old heads.

[robertsyrett]

This is one of my all time favorite matches since Monte presented it on a stream a few years back. It's great you have given the full youtube treatment though, the extra context and editting make it fresh again. :)

[aberrantreptile]

I wish strategies that changed the entire gameplay like this happened more often. It’d make things so much more interesting and unpredictable and wild