ZionSpartan leads the charge against C9
Counter Logic Gaming's win over Cloud9 was one of the most back and forth battles of the entire Summer Split.
"I’m pretty happy with the way we won in that even though we were really far behind, we were able to pull it back and win, playing well as a team," said Counter Logic Gaming's top laner Darshan "ZionSpartan" Upadhyaya after the intense 50-minute Week 8 victory. "It wasn’t like any individual player carried the game or anything like that. It wasn’t us giving up. It was us playing the team fights as a team. I thought that was really good."
Playing from Behind
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CLG locked in a composition designed to flank and hard engage on C9, including a surprising Kennen for the top laner himself. "They just had a bunch of squishies on their team and they didn’t have that good of disengage," he says, explaining his pick. Had he gone for Shen or Nautilus it would have been easier for him to be a front line initiator, but with fragile Kennen, there's more risk -- and more pay off -- for big plays. "I have to get flanks. I have to Flash in at the right times. So it’s basically just a riskier pick, but we decided to go with it there."
The full strength of CLG's comp wouldn't shine through until later on though, thanks to Cloud9's plan to get Nicolaj "Incarnati0n" Jensen's Orianna as fed as possible. "Nidalee was constantly just losing farm to shoot spears and pressure mid lane and then Lemon also roamed mid lane once, so they were just, as a team in the early game, putting a lot of pressure on mid lane." With Orianna and her ball rolling right along, Hai "Hai" Lam's Nidalee pounced back and forth from lane to lane. CLG felt the impact hard, falling almost 5,000 gold behind C9 by 20 minutes.
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As a team, CLG realized they needed to group up and start engaging if they were ever going to get back in the game. "When you fall behind you have to be even more proactive or understand what you have to do to win the game and cut the bleeding, because it’s really easy for teams to snowball if they have an advantage," ZionSpartan says. "So you just have to choose when to fight or choose where to come back in the game and stick to that."
"Of course there was a little bit of hesitation. But once we finally grouped up we pulled the trigger," he continues. "I think that was really good and allowed us to come back."
Taking Control
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With the engage of Sivir, Gragas, and Kennen, CLG grouped up and began taking control. "The fact that we actually started using [our engage composition] pretty well was really good and that’s what basically won us the game, because our whole game plan for winning the game was just engaging right away," ZionSpartan says.
"Ultimately, since I was Kennen, I had to say, 'I’m going in now, everybody follow up'," he explains. "When I did that we finally won a team fight and got Baron off of it and that’s probably the biggest thing I was proud about -- was when we grouped up I finally made the call to go in and we won a team fight off of it."
Consistently grouping up afterwards and coming out ahead in team fights allowed CLG to further extend their lead and fight their way back into the game. ZionSpartan also had a few crucial Teleports thanks to expertly placed flank wards, and combined with Yiliang "Doublelift" Peng's Sivir ultimate and Jake "Xmithie" Puchero's Righteous Glory, it was even easier for CLG to get strong engages on C9. "You pop that item and you just win the game off of going first and getting that speed boost. They’re just really game changing items and abilities."
Shifting Strategies
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While CLG clawed ahead with those game changing items and abilities, C9 used them to make mistakes. "In the mid and late game team fights Maokai, Balls, would always Righteous Glory and then root the Sivir who had spell shield," ZionSpartan says. "Every single time he went in, Sivir would just spell shield the root and then Maokai would take free damage. I think they had the right idea with engaging, but I think he rooted the wrong person."
And who did CLG focus? At first it was the Orianna who had gotten so far ahead in the early game. "We just all went on him every fight because we knew that was the only way we’d win," says ZionSpartan. "So it was just like an adaptation like whether to go on Orianna or Kalista depending on who was more fed -- and Orianna was ridiculously fed."
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But later, they adapted and started focusing C9's front line instead. "A lot of times late game it’s just knowing who you can isolate and pick off to make it a 5 vs. 4, more than 'we need to focus Orianna.' That’s still very important, but if you can isolate one person who is out of position and take advantage of that, that’s even more of a guaranteed way to win the late game where positioning is the most important thing."
CLG displayed excellent team cohesion in the later stages of the game, and by isolating Daerek "LemonNation" Hart's Karma, they instantly killed the The Enlightened One, winning the last team fight.
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"I think it’s really good that we’re able to win a game through team fighting and playing the mid and late game better after getting such a big early game deficit," ZionSpartan says. "I was still a little bit disappointed with a couple of decisions I made and a couple of things we could have done better as a team," he humbly adds. "But overall, I’m pretty happy with the win."
What did you think of Counter Logic Gaming's rematch against Cloud9? Let us know in the comments, and for more LCS, check out the spoiler-free VODs page!
Leah Jackson is a web content editor at Lolesports. She loves Gnar! Feel free to follow her on Twitter @Leahbjackson.
C9 on the rise I hope