Game of the Day: Cloud 9 versus Team SoloMid

By Helmight

            The titans have clashed once again, but this time you might be surprised by the ending. Cloud 9 has typically dominated Team SoloMid in their head-to-head matchups, but this time around it was TSM that took home the victory after a closely-fought game.  

            Of course, a matchup between the two NA giants wouldn’t be complete without some sort of crazy ending. After taking two of Cloud 9’s inhibitors, TSM rotated down to the bottom lane to pressure the third. Somehow, LemonNation managed to land a godly Death Sentence onto WildTurtle and annihilate TSM’s lategame carry, forcing TSM into a full retreat. Cloud 9 chased TSM all the way to their own exposed bot inhibitor, took it, and then made the risky call to try and end the game. They managed to take one Nexus tower down, but Turtle’s respawn and the massive number of minions knocking on their own Nexus turrets forced Cloud 9 back. As Cloud 9’s members tried to recall to defend the base, they were each hunted down in turn by the pursuing TSM members, killed in ones and twos while Balls tried desperately to hold off the super minions. With their base in shambles, Cloud 9 could do nothing to keep Team SoloMid from ending the game.

            TSM’s comp was very similar to the one they played against CLG early this week, except this time it worked. Dyrus’s Explosive Casks were on point throughout the match, keeping Cloud 9 from grouping up and allowing him to easily peel for WildTurtle. Dyrus also had the near-constant assistance of Amazing during the early game. The two of them repeatedly dove Balls under his tower, killing him three times before the ten-minute mark. With all of the gold he’d received from the dives, plus his Drunken Rage, Dyrus was practically unkillable. Meanwhile, WildTurtle went wild in this game, picking up a quadra kill in the lategame and finishing the match with more than half of TSM’s kills.

            Cloud 9 meanwhile looked a bit out of sorts. From minute one, things were off – Balls died during an early invasion after facechecking a bush, and Cloud 9’s shotcalling was off throughout the game. Sure, they did a much better job at securing dragons than Team SoloMid in the early game, but their teamfighting and midgame decision-making was questionable at best. Balls getting shut down didn’t help matters at all. Cloud 9 relies heavily on their toplaner doing well, making his choice of Dr. Mundo for the top lane all the more curious.

TSM had to fight tooth and nail to gain their lategame advantage though. Cloud 9’s play was shaky, but they were only 1k back from Team SoloMid through most of the midgame. It was a single teamfight that changed things. As they teams skirmished around the midlane, Amazing managed to land a miraculous Sonic Wave onto Sneaky. At the last second, TSM’s jungler leapt onto Sneaky and ulted him back at his team, giving TSM a phenomenal initiation to the fight. Though Cloud 9’s AD carry would somehow survive, three of his teammates would fall in the ensuing battle. With Cloud 9’s solo laners and jungler down, Team SoloMid was able to grab their first Baron and dragon of the game, giving them the advantage they needed to pressure down the inhibitors.

Cloud 9 (L)				Team SoloMid (W)
Kills	Turrets	Gold		Kills	Turrets			Gold
5	6	62.6k		16	10			70.8k
Lineup
Position	Player	Champion	K/D/A	Position		Player			Champion	K/D/A
Top	Balls	Dr. Mundo	0/6/1	Top	Dyrus				Gragas	1/0/9
Jungle	Meteos	Elise	3/3/1	Jungle	Amazing				Lee Sin	2/1/9
Mid	Hai	Yasuo	0/3/4	Mid	Bjergsen				Syndra	3/1/7
ADC	Sneaky	Lucian	2/3/1	ADC	WildTurtle				Tristana	10/1/2
Support	LemonNation	Thresh	0/1/2	Support	Gleeb				Morgana	0/2/9
Bans
Kog’Maw	Braum	Twisted Fate		Kassadin			Lulu	Rengar

Questions? Comments? Leave them below!

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

Questions? Comments? Leave them below!

Game of the Day: compLexity versus Cloud 9

By Helmight

            Cloud 9 is usually looked at as the Superman of the NA LCS – the best hope for NA to win worlds, and one of its strongest teams. However, the North American champions may have just found their kryptonite in the form of compLexity. Despite being a new team to the league and having one of the worst records, COL has proven to be quite effective against Cloud 9. Their first match during Super Week resulted in a surprising win for compLexity, and though much has changed since then this matchup hasn’t in the slightest. In a chaotic game full of sprawling, scattered teamfights, compLexity managed to take down Cloud 9 in an immensely surprising upset.

            I’ll be honest – I didn’t watch this game live because I figured it was going to be a one-sided stomp. NA shoutcaster Jatt said himself that compLexity was “at the mercy of Cloud 9”, and the fan vote swung heavily in C9’s favor. However, COL approached this game with determination and poise, drafting a strong teamfight composition that relied heavily on pr0lly’s Yasuo. C9 meanwhile went for early game dominance, planning on shutting down compLexity early with lane bullies likes Caitlyn and Renekton and then using their usually flawless rotations to keep COL out of the game. It was a sound strategy – every time compLexity has fallen behind early, they’ve usually lost the game.

            The early game made it appear as though C9’s plan was working to perfection. COL was pressured hard in every lane, with pr0lly dying to a stealthy Meteos gank for first blood. Westrice then tried to engage on Balls’ Renekton with his ult, but was immediately forced to Flash away from the fight after realizing that he couldn’t beat the crocodile in a straight-up fight. The first tower of the game was C9’s as well – business as usual against a last-place team.

            But compLexity somehow managed to stay relevant. Instead of panicking and throwing themselves further behind, COL executed a lane swap. Pr0lly was able to comfortably farm against Sneaky despite not having a tower, while Bubbadub and RobertxLee were able to pressure Hai. It was a strategy that might not have worked if C9 had immediately switched their own lanes to counter it, but for whatever reason the NA champions waited for a few minutes before making the swap. It didn’t matter an awful lot for compLexity in the end – but it did keep them in the game a bit longer and kept C9’s gold lead down to 1k.

            Once teamfights started, they proved to be a chaotic affair. Nothing seemed to go right for either team – RobertxLee’s ballsy Rocket Jump initiation onto Sneaky didn’t go as planned, but C9 seemed out of sorts in fights, constantly shifting their position without simply standing and fighting against a team that hadn’t outscaled them yet. Though neither team won the first fight, it was a bad omen for Cloud 9. The next two teamfights went much the same way, but after forcing Hai to back with low health at the end of the third skirmish, COL made the call to start Baron. With a Tristana and an Elise on their team, compLexity was able to swiftly burn down the objective before Cloud 9 could respond, gaining their first lead of the game.

            C9 knew they were in trouble now – their bullies were effective in the early game, but not nearly as good as compLexity’s lineup in the late game. For this reason, they opted to play passively, trying to use Caitlyn and Ziggs’ waveclear to keep COL at bay. Normally, this would have been a smart move – if you were playing against someone not named Westrice. compLexity’s toplaner had been using his ult almost suicidally to set up teamfights, and as 3 members of C9 grouped around their mid inner tower, he went in. A Flash over the wall into Dragon’s Descent set up a three-man Last Breath from pr0lly, annihilating LemonNation and Sneaky in an instant. The kills were enough for COL to break into C9’s base and take the first inhibitor of the game.     At that point, it was no secret as to where the game was going. Ten minutes and three more inhibitors later, compLexity took down Cloud 9’s Nexus for the stunning victory.

COL bans: Rengar, Lulu, Lee Sin

C9 bans: Kassadin, Braum, Kayle

Player	Champion	K/D/A	Minions Killed
compLexity
Westrice	Shyvana	1/1/8	310
Kez	Elise	2/1/6	120
pr0lly	Yasuo	1/4/8	264
ROBERTxLEE	Tristana	5/2/4	345
Bubbadub	Sona	1/1/9	25
Cloud 9
Balls	Renekton	2/0/5	306
Meteos	Evelynn	4/1/3	136
Hai	Ziggs	0/2/6	331
Sneaky	Caitlyn	3/2/3	295
LemonNation	Morgana	0/5/4	22

 Questions? Comments? Leave them below!