Hello and welcome to Kobe’s Art of War.
Sun Tzu said, "Whoever is first to the field 
and awaits the coming of the enemy, 
will be fresh for the fight; 
whoever is second to the field and 
has to hasten to battle will arrive exhausted."
And while you don’t exactly get tired 
walking over to a teamfight in League of Legends, 
there are great benefits to getting to an objective first
and allowing you to control the battlefield in which the fight will take place.
I wanted to take a look back at a regular season game 
between Cloud9 and TSM in week 8. 
We’re going to examine how proper preparation for objectives
and zoning can win a teamfight, 
especially if your opponents over chase.
22 minutes into the game,
TSM use their advantage in the 1v1 
with Broken Blade’s Irelia to push in bottom
while the rest of the team pushes mid 
30 seconds before the arrival of the dragon.
They then move into the river to control vision 
and lay down an intimidating line of Caitlyn traps.
Caitlyn players max Yordle Snap Trap second
giving the max rank by level 13 which Doublelift just hit.
This grants him 5 maximum charges 
he can store up and quickly lay down across the river. 
With Caitlyn traps in front of them,
a control ward behind them, 
the bottom minion wave pushing, 
and Broken Blade watching the jungle,
TSM successfully controls the battlefield 
to reduce Cloud9’s engage options.
Cloud9 are now forced to eat some of the traps to open up a pathway
 if they want to contest the dragon
and in fact, that’s exactly what they do.
Blaber moves up, eats a headshot for his troubles,
and then uses an empowered Q plus smite to steal the dragon away
while Zven fires off an Ashe arrow.
And here's where it gets interesting.
Even though Cloud9 have stolen the dragon, 
it doesn’t give a large power increase for the immediate fight
and given the fact that Kennen does not have flash,
is still positioned behind the trap line, 
Cloud9 would actually be advised here 
to leave the river and be content with their dragon steal.
This is where our second quote from the Art of War comes in,
“If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him.
Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.”
Which roughly translates to:
"Just bait 'em, bro."
At this moment you may think Treatz’ Morgana
 fails to Black Shield Doublelift,
After all, Zven’s Ashe Arrow stuns Doublelift, gives vision to Cloud9,
and encourages them to engage on the AD Carry. 
But if we rewind the footage and look frame by frame, 
Treatz’ hands are clearly still functioning,
he does in fact make a choice to cast Redemption 
on Doublelift instead of the Black Shield
while the arrow is still in the air. 
This strategy is effective
because Cloud9’s carries are in very poor positions
 to follow up with damage on the engage.
and with the combination of Redemption 
to heal up Volibear’s R+W physical damage,
and a later Black Shield to mitigate 
the minimal magic damage from Volibear’s E,
Treatz is easily able to deal with the initial threat on Doublelift.
Now even though Nisqy is the closest DPS 
to following up on Blaber's engage,
he is on Azir and it is dangerous for Azir 
to chase very long distances in teamfights
as he must use his Conquering Sands ability 
to move sand soldiers forward,
thus leaving him without an escape tool and vulnerable.
Meanwhile, Broken Blade stuns Kennen far back from the teamfight 
as he attempts to navigate through the traps, 
and though he does not stun Zven,
the attempt zones him away from the side of the river
and into following Nisqy and Vulcan in their path behind Blaber, 
further grouping up the Cloud9 members.
This is finally the moment TSM have been waiting for. 
Sett’s ultimate does 50% of 
the target’s bonus health in AOE damage at rank 2, 
making Volibear, with all his extra health, 
the ideal target to dunk back into the rest of his team.
But the river is 1000 units wide, 
while the ult only has a diameter of 600 units
and falls off in damage near the edges.
So this is where we see the true value 
of TSM baiting in their opponents
to funnel through the Caitlyn traps and around the Irelia stun.
Spica gets a massive 4-person ultimate
because the grouped up members of Cloud9 don’t immediately
flash away from the incoming Showstopper, 
they take the sweet spot damage and 
Spica is also able to cast a follow-up Facebreaker 
just as he is pushed back by the Emperor’s Divide,
stunning Blaber, Nisqy, and Vulcan 
for follow-up AOE damage from 
Doublelift’s Peacemaker and Bjergsen’s Wild Cards.
When Broken Blade’s Irelia ult comes through,
they try to flash and scatter, 
but the damage has been done and it's too late.
As TSM chase down the two flash-less 
Cloud9 members inside the dragon pit, 
Bjergsen stuns and Treatz exhausts the only
 remaining threat in Licorice’s Kennen,
allowing them to pick up their third kill and the subsequent Baron.
TSM go on to win this game in which
 they demonstrate multiple times
the power of early objective preparation, 
proper spacing in your teamfights,
and tricking your opponents into over chasing.
Please leave any feedback for this new series 
in the comments or hit me up on twitter @esports_kobe
