Viper has explained one of BLG’s worst teamfights against Top Esports. According to him, someone on the team said “Pantheon has no ultimate,” and BLG lost the fight badly.
The problem is that Pantheon did have it.
The trouble started earlier in the game, in a fight at the Void Grubs on the top side of the map.
Pantheon started casting his ultimate, Grand Starfall, during that fight. BLG support ON reportedly interrupted the cast before it finished.
That looked like a win for BLG. Pantheon’s ultimate had been used, so it should be on cooldown for a long time.
It wasn’t. Viewers who rewatched the game say the interrupted ultimate only went on a cooldown of around 30 seconds. A completed Grand Starfall usually has a cooldown of a few minutes.
By the time Pantheon was back in action, his ultimate was ready again. He soon used it toward the bottom side of the map, and BLG weren’t ready for him.
BLG lost the fight that followed. Viper put the blame on the wrong information.
The fine print on Grand Starfall
Grand Starfall lets Pantheon channel and then fly in to land on an area far away. A team that thinks this ultimate is down can play more aggressively, because they don’t expect him to join the fight from across the map.
If the cast is stopped partway, the game doesn’t charge Pantheon the full cooldown. He only gets a much shorter one.
That’s how a fair “no ult” call can go wrong. Right after the interruption, the call was probably true. The mistake would have been trusting it after the short timer had already run out.
Pantheon being ready right as he respawned also doesn’t mean dying reset his ultimate. Cooldowns keep counting down while a champion is dead. The short timer simply ran out before he came back.
