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10 Thoughts Going into week 5
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Cloud9 has risen above the pack thanks to Blaber embodying the very meaning of the word “chad.” The rest of the field is caught in deadlocks here or there, and with MSI being confirmed this year, the race to fly to Iceland is revving up quickly. Here’s 10 thoughts going into Week 5!
**1. Cloud9 (10-2) -- Chop, chop**
There is a moment at the end of their match against 100 where Blaber is engaged on right outside of the 100 base. The next closest C9 player is at least a second away from the action, which is normally enough time to isolate and kill someone, and you know how Blaber responded? He flashes over the wall into them (further away from his team) and starts beating on a small clump of 100 Thieves players. Just straight up yells “chop, chop” like he’s trying to collect some Fine Wood in Valheim. It was both the perfect play to capture the essence of Blaber as a player and Cloud9 as a team -- every moment is an opportunity. C9 has a clear grasp on first place in the LCS right now, and because of their aggression, they also feel like the most dangerous team in the league. It hasn’t been as dominant as their 2020 Spring Run, but there are flashes of the same brilliance that propelled them to the most successful split in LCS history. With MSI having been announced this week, it might end up being a small bit of consolation for fans if this roster is able to secure the NA bid. We have historically sent very safe and more controlled styles of play to international events, but this version of C9 could prove to be very different.
**2. 100 Thieves (8-4) -- Digging tunnels**
A smite this way or that way or a skill shot missing here or there and this 100 Thieves team might more accurately be sitting at a 6-6 record (or worse). They’re posting the highest average game time in the league at 37.4 minutes (more than 7 minutes longer than Cloud9), which continues to be a red flag for me. I don’t think longer game times inherently make a team worse, but that’s only if the way they play is methodical. When you look at 100 Thieves games, they end up in a lot of dog fight scenarios where I don’t trust them to win team fights unless they are significantly up in gold. They’re not losing the games either, so it’s not like they’re terrible, but eventually this will catch up to them against better teams in an extended series. You’d honestly expect this team to be one of the faster-paced teams considering how lane dominant they should be in top and bottom, especially with a roam-heavy style from Damonte and a jungler who looked to be one of the hottest up-and-coming names in the league last year. I feels like their momentum has kind of stagnated right now, though, which ultimately might be a good thing. I find that whenever I stagnate in, say, TFT, it means I’m in a period of learning and growth. It is a mountain you must overcome. 100 is currently digging a little aimlessly, but if they keep digging, eventually they’ll find light.
**3. TSM (8-4) -- Spica, steal Baron**
Can you imagine sitting down to review the game against TL and your conclusion on how and why you won is just “Spica stole the Baron.” Like, what if that was just part of your game plan every game -- give everything to the enemy team and then snap their necks at Baron with a miracle steal. It’s definitely a “we take those” situation, but it’s not a win to be particularly proud of, which is fine for TSM right now. They’ve already demonstrated a lot of growth throughout the course of this split, and there’s no reason to believe they won’t keep growing. It sometimes still feels like watching a lot of disparate parts doing their best to keep it together, like a game of Jenga that is half finished. The thing I miss the most about not having Bjergsen was that his skill on champions like Akali let TSM play a lot of fun skirmish and flank-reliant comps, and right now they feel pretty limited to front-to-back styles. This has been fine in the current meta, but as you start to run into teams that can circumvent that, such as Cloud9, then you’ll need to be a bit more flexible. Or lock Spica in a room and have him only practice smiting.
**4. Dignitas (7-5) -- We… don’t scale?**
I know I don’t get any points for saying this but I truly did have a feeling that Dignitas would lose to CLG. It had nothing to do with how DIG was playing necessarily but all of the pieces were in place for an upset -- nobody believed in CLG, and DIG was on the cusp being believed in. So the only logical result would be to upend both of those expectations. One thing I am worried about with regards to this lineup is that they lean heavily on Dardoch and jungle just got nerfed. We saw him secure a lot of kills in the loss against 100, and then we also saw him take pretty much every kill early in the loss to CLG (playing Hecarim and then Nidalee respectively). Anyone who has played a good amount of Solo Queue knows that kills in the hands of junglers can be a good thing if they are able to snowball the game to an early stomp (FF at 15), but if the game drags on, you just hit a point where you wish the kills were on your carries instead. The problem is that most junglers -- of course including Nidalee and Hecarim -- rely on entering melee range to really do their jobs. This is much harder in coordinated environments. So as the season goes on, it’ll be up to the carries to start demanding more of the resources. I feel like DIG’s ceiling will be pretty low if it’s just the Dardoch show, but I do admit that I would prefer if it stayed that way -- I’d like for a team to just go all-in on their jungler and prove me wrong.
**5. Evil Geniuses (7-5) -- A tale of two carries**
You could make a montage of all the best plays from a mid laner in the LCS this season and put it against a montage of all the worst plays from a mid laner this season and all of them could be from Jiizuke. It felt like it was even more prominently on display this past weekend, and it’s something that I’m not sure I even want fixed. I feel like a relationship therapist by saying this, but sometimes you gotta take the bad with the good. Making big plays requires a lot of risk, and he’s able to do it because he constantly puts himself in positions where he needs to outplay to survive. Well, that’s the optimistic way of looking at it. The pessimistic way is that this inconsistency is going to hamstring what EG tries to do and wants to do because sometimes the game will swing entirely on what he’s doing. This may also not be entirely his fault -- for example, sending him to a side wave might be someone else’s call entirely. Or ganking for his lane when he has no mana. Whoever’s “fault” it is, the end result is the same, which is that miscues with Jiizuke have been and continue to create as many issues as they do openings for this team. This means when another player, like IgNar, also happens to be having a bad game, it can be extremely difficult for EG to do much of anything. I don’t know how you even become more “consistent,” but that’s exactly what EG needs to do heading into the final stretch of the Spring Split.
**6. Team Liquid (7-5) -- I swear they’re good**
Every week I am that Charlie meme from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia where he is trying to solve a detective case, except I am trying to piece together bits of information to convince you that TL is the best team in the league. Even if they’re only 7-5. Well, this week, no more! I have officially converted to the C9 train on that end, and that leaves TL as… well… probably still the 2nd best team in my books. They’ve surprisingly been a little lackluster in even team fights, which is something they were extremely good at in the past few years. Part of this, I think, may be tied to losing Impact, who is arguably the single best player when it comes to engaging fights and finding good flanks. Alphari has been a tremendous player for them but he doesn’t bring the same type of team fighting style to this roster, and perhaps it is still taking them some time to properly adjust. Tactical has also been on the receiving end of some criticism for being caught out too much, and while I appreciate his aggression, he needs to dial it back a little bit. He seems to always think he can outplay his opponents (especially on champions like Kai’Sa), and it may actually be good for TL to put a soft leash on him by sticking him on champions with less outplay potential like Jhin and Ashe. Though that’s probably the boring way out of this -- if they want to improve in the long run then Tactical just needs to keep testing his limits. TL is basically unstoppable when CoreJJ and Tactical can kill their lane heads up. Screw the rules.
**7. Immortals (5-7) -- Always dive, never don’t dive**
During their game against TL, there is a moment where Tactical has low health and is alone under the turret. Destiny uses the Tahm Kench ult to get behind him to box him in for a dive as Raes approaches from the front, and pretty much the exact moment the Tahm Kench ult goes off, TL members descend on them from every angle, including a TP from Alphari. It was like a scene in an action movie where a bunch of dudes pop up from behind boxes and walls and brandish their weapons. But I kind of appreciated seeing that play from IMT. Without fog of far it’s hard for me to know how much information they had -- the TP was unexpected because of a really smart ward -- but it’s still a risky play unless you also have vision of where the jungler and mid laner are. Regardless, I liked that they went for it (and honestly they should have just fully committed to it once they were getting collapsed on since they were screwed anyway). This is one of those teams that is arguably on the brink of making a breakthrough to the next level of play, and taking initiative is how you make that leap. I’m not saying it was a smart play, but it had the right intent and mindset behind it, you know? With two weeks left, it’s unlikely we see a sprint to the top for IMT, but I’d say their 5-7 record is not too bad considering their rough entry into the split.
**8. FlyQuest (4-8) -- Int for the bees**
My favorite moment in FlyQuest games is when they’re sitting in their fountain waiting for their Nexus to be killed because I like to see which teams and players are willing to sacrifice themselves for the bees (FLY donates more money to bees if they get kills). This is a wholesome moment in that the bees can receive a little extra love, but it is an extremely unwholesome moment if you are a fan of the actual League of Legends team. Being in the fountain at that moment means they have lost, and that it has become my favorite moment means it has happened a lot. FLY has been decisively mediocre at best this year as much of this team still adjusts to the stage. Johnsun showed some flashes of brilliance this week -- especially in their win over TSM -- so it’s not like it’s all doom and gloom for this team. Josedeodo has also started to acclimate better, at least on an individual level. The team as a whole just doesn’t always click, but at this point it’s probably best to keep an eye on them individually to see who is worth investing in long term (the bees for sure). This split feels like it’s about laying the groundwork for this rebuild, so of course there are hiccups, but Johnsun and Josedeodo are definitely players you can build around.
**9. Counter Logic Gaming (2-10) -- Faith Drills**
Sounds the alarms! This is not a drill! CLG has won a second game! Maybe that’s why all those sirens were going off at 5 AM outside my apartment this morning. Even the local fire department has heard of the comeback story that is CLG. Anyway they’ll need to do that six more times if they really want this story to end on a happy note, which is, well, unlikely. DIG had a massive lead against them in that game, but a win is a win even if it involved the enemy team throwing. And right now wins buy time for CLG to get their shit together -- this five man unit seems to be their core for the rest of the split, and if they are able to string together some wins, then perhaps the roster will stick together for the rest of the year. The Pobelter/WildTurtle combo always made sense to me because Pobelter is able to leverage the space provided to him because of how much attention Turtle draws. Turtle is aggressive and sometimes overly so, but if the enemy uses everything to kill him, then someone else needs to be able to step up. That should be Pobelter -- it was a role he carried out very well on TL. CLG should be a fun team to watch down the stretch -- if you had a MSI for all the last places teams, I think they would be crowned the best last place team in the world right now. They could push up to 7th place by the end of the split, which would be good momentum to end on seeing as the spring record carries over to summer now. So is it time to put some faith in CLG? Well…
**10. Golden Guardians (2-10) -- Lose is improve?**
I’ve been thinking about the idea of a developmental roster, and honestly it is kind of just a nice way to talk about a team that has more budget restraints. Are they probably doing the best they can? Yes, I’d believe that for sure. But at the end of the day, the point of competing at this level is to win. Improving and growing and whatnot are things that contribute to that end result, but the end is still winning. Or in this case, losing. This kind of roster makes a lot of sense in sports where you are “rewarded” for losing with a really high draft pick, but because our system largely circumvents that, it feels to me like it’s really difficult to lean into this angle. It feels kind of like baseball where the rich teams just eat everything up (but even there, the draft helps spread players through a deep minor league system). So we have teams like the Golden Guardians, who are clearly still lacking in many areas but there is no Zion lined up in the draft to flip this ship for them. They either improve or they don’t, which is a tough pill to swallow. I do hope, though, that they are given a lot of time to try to make that happen -- growth will happen the fastest if you are placed against the highest level of competition. I hope GG continues to commit entirely to this experiment now that we’re this far into it.
