NiP stylizing the tank-heavy approach

Something we've been seeing on the up is use of variations to the 2/2/2 meta since the introduction of and subsequent buff to Ana and the nerf to discord, amongst a few others. The combination has given rise to the idea that certain tank heroes can flourish in more situations than before, especially when stacking them together as it not only increases the time required for opponents to get burst kills, but also punishes them for doing chip damage too often, building up the ultimates of their opposing supports more rapidly.

One team in particular that is making an interesting venture into this space is Ninjas in Pyjamas, who this week made use of not only a 3 tank + 2 support + 1 DPS composition, but at times even a 4 tank + 2 support one. Perhaps the most notable use of this was on Hollywood against Luminosity Gaming in the Lenovo Cup. Below we unpack some of the details of their compositions and why it proved to be so difficult to deal with, including the video time for you to reference against.

Part 1: NiP defend on Hollywood

Opening composition from NiP (defending)

Opening composition from LG (attacking)

VOD section

To give some context to the opening pick of Roadhog on attack, NiP picked a Roadhog and Hanzo combination in the preceding map, Gibraltar, with great success. While the Hanzo was much more relevant in needing to spot the positions of the defence and make otherwise difficult picks up on the high ground, it has remained a popular pick through a variety of maps.

Note, despite the Roadhog going down early from an aggressive position in LG's first push [16:35], how NiP is able to buy time until Ana's ultimate. They keep on retreating further whilst maintaining constant heals on the Reinhardt, and once the Ana ultimate is deployed it becomes a fairly easy hold as their opponents are quicker targets to burst down, having been drawn in closer. [16:45] During the second push, the Roadhog hook is used to pull the opposing Roadhog out of position during his nanoboost timer [17:13], and given the slight CC duration at the end of the hook this sets up nicely for an Ana sleep dart. So not only are we seeing an effective way to counter the opposition's damage output through burst heal and nanoboosting, but also an effective way to control high priority, "in your face" targets to buy enough time to repeat your own nanoboost counterattack. NiP is eventually outnumbered on the third push after losing two heroes to the Hanzo, but also note here how the Ana ultimate was up at the end [18:30], suggesting how the fight may have been turned around were it to have lasted slightly longer.

The streets phase is then determined by a number of similar attacks, all of which possess one defining setup technique. Due to the ability of NiP's tanks to be aggressive given their combined high HP pool, with Ana burst healing the Reinhardt and the Hog/Zarya able to sustain themselves in parts of the fight, their ultimates are readily available and aren't often overlapped. The frequency of these tank ultimates, which all possess some variety of crowd control, allows NiP to control and set the tempo in many team engagements. [19:10 & 19:30 & 20:10]

Were it not for Hymzi's Roadhog disconnecting, the map may have ended at a much shallower payload position for LG.

What could LG have done better?

From an outside perspective it is always going to be easier to call for adjustments than it is in the midst of the fight, however there are a few things that can be pointed out as fairly simple things to try. The Hanzo was not necessarily a bad pick but he lacked the addition of a DPS buddy to really apply enough pressure. It would have perhaps been nice to see how a Reaper faired in the attack of point 1, especially considering how much ground NiP was giving up to make their strategy work, which would have allowed the Reaper to get into advantageous positions around the payload.

For point 2, a Hanzo/Reaper combination would also mean that high-ground control would be instantly locked in. A Pharah would also be a great option, potentially in combination with a Mercy rather than the Ana, giving long range attacking ability which would have been difficult for NiP to respond to. This would then require NiP to either rely on Ana shooting a discorded target, which is not a very effective solution, especially when their core strategy revolved around Ana healing instead, or relying on hooks which could be avoided by range. NiP with their composition did not have any form of high-ground control either, meaning all of the rooftops would be safe staging areas for a DPS/Mercy play.

Part 2: NiP attack on Hollywood

Opening composition from NiP (attacking)

Opening composition from LG (defending)

VOD section

Interestingly NiP opted for the same attacking composition as LG made use of, but executed it much more cleanly. Perhaps the most relevant difference is to point out that LG made use of a Winston on defence which essentially handed NiP easy healing for Ana. As hinted at earlier, the NiP strategy punishes chip damage that isn't converted into kills, and we see this clearly in NiP's first push as the Winston hands the Ana roughly 50% ultimate charge for no significant gain to LG. [27:40] Subsequent to that, almost a single fire strike from the Reinhardt is enough to secure the NiP nanoboost, and in turn a quick take of the objective.

LG then attempts a similarly aggressive attack to what NiP pulled off at the start of their street-phase defence, but does not do it with the same punch as the Genji and Tracer cannot chip away at the health pool of NiP's tanks fast enough without their own ultimates to work with. [28:55]

From there on out, LG struggles to find the right sort of answers and perhaps we could have seen the true value of NiP's tanky line-up were the hero swaps more effective on LG's part.

What could LG have done better?

Again it felt like as much of the fault lay with LG for picking poorly as it did with NiP playing their composition smartly. The first point 'desperation' picks out of LG (when they were losing the point and opted for mobile heroes) had to be held through to the streets phase where they proved highly ineffective. Reaper and Pharah were still solid picks in this scenario, or even a McCree if pairing up some of these DPS heroes with a discord or Pharah damage boost addition.

In theory their composition may have been able to pull off a few support kills if they worked well together, but their risk-to-reward ratio was much higher than that of NiP's to execute. Overall, when their execution was not as on point as NiP's, the safer choice would have been to opt to make use of a range advantage more.

Final words

Whilst it would have been ideal to see a higher ranked team face this sort of composition from NiP, I have no doubt we will see more of this going forward and it is certainly something to watch for as a potential composition to shake up what had been somewhat of a stagnating meta (increased Mercy and Mei picks aside).

Let me know what you think and whether you like this sort of perspective behind new team compositions.

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Full VOD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avc074x-cRk