Game of the Day: Team Dignitas versus Cloud 9

By Helmight

            I want to love Team Dignitas, I really do. They had a great start to this split after acquiring ZionSpartan and Shiphtur and I honestly thought that they had a chance to supplant TSM and Cloud 9 as the number one team in NA. Unfortunately for Dignitas fans, their team has been woefully inconsistent. One day they take out C9 and CLG and all the other top contenders without breaking a sweat – the next, they take tough losses to all their opponents in games that could have been won. The latter was the case today. Dignitas ended their Super Week on a disappointing note after losing to Cloud 9 in a game where they possessed an arguably stronger composition.

With the gold lead tied for most of the game, it came down to Baron Nashor to decide who would win and who would lose. Dignitas ultimately didn’t respect Nunu and Kog’Maw’s Baron-taking abilities enough and the objective went over to Cloud 9 without even a whimper of a fight. Cloud 9 immediately made use of the buff with a clever splitpushing strategy that stretched Dignitas thin, forcing ZionSpartan away from the bulk of his team while Sneaky and Hai poked down Dig out from under their tower. After losing the first inhib, Dig got desperate and tried for a surprise attack from behind Cloud 9 as they sieged bottom – however, by that point they’d fallen so far behind that Cloud 9 had no trouble putting them away. With Dignitas down four members, Cloud 9 could easily march in and end the game shortly after the 40-minute mark.

            Cloud 9 has been a mirror of Dignitas this split, dropping games left and right in an uncharacteristic manner. Part of it is that the overall skill of NA’s teams has increased, but inconsistency has plagued them as well. Still, their strategy today was quite sound – protect Sneaky’s Kog’Maw at all costs. It’s a tried and true tactic, but they scarcely needed it today after Hai picked up four early kills. His fed Orianna shut out Dignitas in the midgame, allowing Sneaky to rest and farm up so he could take over late game.

            It’s unfair to give most of the credit to Cloud 9’s carries though. The remainder of the squad played beautifully, showing off the legendary synergy that had carried them to the Season 3 World Championships. Without LemonNation’s clutch bubbles or Meteos’s timely ults, it’s probable that Dignitas would have come through in the end. Balls meanwhile played a phenomenal Lulu, shutting down ZionSpartan’s Kayle in the toplane so Cloud 9 wouldn’t have to worry about a powerful hyper carry breathing down their necks. All in all, a gorgeous performance by NA’s champions.

            Dignitas meanwhile played well enough. They went blow-for-blow with Cloud 9 through the early portion of the match and well into midgame, securing an equal number of dragons and towers as their opponents. Imaqtpie and Shiphtur both played well, landing key skillshots and wombo-ing their ults to great effect against Cloud 9 in teamfights. Though they didn’t always win skirmishes, Dig could usually at least answer back with a kill or two.

             However, mistakes can’t happen if you want to win against Cloud 9 and Dig made plenty of them. Poor team cohesion meant that members of Dignitas got caught out of position in multiple teamfights, either allowing Cloud 9 to poke them down or simply kill them outright. Of equal note was Crumbzz’s questionable build path – Trinity Force is viable on Vi (heh), but Crumbzz ended up delaying his tanks items for too long. A tanky Vi could have initiated onto Sneaky and forced Cloud 9 to focus him, but Crumbzz was dying way too fast in fights to really matter. With no answer for Kog’Maw and none for Ball’s splitpushing Lulu, it was only a matter of time before they fell.

DIG bans: Evelynn, Twisted Fate, Elise

C9 bans: Kassadin, Jax, Lee Sin

Player	Champion	K/D/A	Minions killed
Team Dignitas
ZionSpartan	Kayle	3/2/1	274
Crumbzz	Vi	1/7/6	126
Shiphtur	Ziggs	4/2/5	380
Imaqtpie	Jinx	5/2/5	288
KiWiKiD	Braum	0/2/11	44
Cloud 9
Balls	Lulu	2/3/5	368
Meteos	Nunu	1/2/11	120
Hai	Orianna	6/3/5	369
Sneaky	Kog’Maw	5/1/7	326
LemonNation	Nami	1/4/9	16

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