Does Cloud 9 rely on Hai too much?

Aozora·Oct 4, 2014·2 votes·2,291 views

I love Cloud 9 to death and I can say without a doubt that every single one of them are marvelous players, but it sort of seems to me that Cloud9 is a bit too reliant on their midlaner, Hai. In the SSB Vs. C9 series, a lot of people said that the outcome is going to depend on how well Hai does.

The problem with that though is it seems to put a lot of pressure on Hai. He's their main shotcaller and if he doesn't do well the rest of the team seems to follow suit and vice versa. It's clear that they're really in sync with one another which makes them one of the strongest team-fighting teams in the game, but this has also been proving to be a bad thing for Cloud 9 especially this season.

I really do think that Meteos should also be out their calling shots and making engages so Cloud 9 becomes an even better team.

9 Comments

12talesOct 5, 20148 votes

I really do think that Meteos should also be out their calling shots and making engages so Cloud 9 becomes an even better team.

The difficulty is, Hai is an insanely good shot caller - probably the best outside of Korea. Even if taking some of the burden off of him would raise the team's lows, it would also lower the team's highs (no pun intended). C9 as a team has maybe two players that are actually world class - Hai's shot calling is the only sell they've got for why they should be considered a threat on the international stage.

It's the Moscow Five curse. When your greatest strength is the dynamic between those five specific players, it's also your greatest weakness.

NeroUSOct 5, 20145 votes

I don't think observers can really tell what makes a team work. Meteos and Sneaky are world class at their positions. Hai is an inconsistent but has great games and bad games. Lemon and Balls are more dependable and have solid games every time they hit the rift.

Its hard to tell what Lemon, Balls, Meteos, Sneaky and Hai bring behind the scenes, however. For all we know, Balls diffuses arguments between Hai and Meteos and if he left the team would collapse (even if they brought in a better top).

Earl EulrichOct 5, 20143 votes

Not everyone is suited for calling shots, but I think it´s important that every player can step in and carry fights/a game by making plays if others have a bad game. And yea, that´s sth. Meteos definitely should be able to do more (just compare his and Spirits LeeSin performance, they´re worlds apart + as any western jungler he seems unable to grasp how to play rengar), he´s often a tad to passive early on which really hurts C9 when playing against Teams like SSB where you need to put a lot of pressure down early because you can´t just outsmart/fight them later on ...though this really is sth. C9 has to learn as a whole. In the Na-LCS they came incredible far with their style of playing it save early and just be smarter /better mid to late-game - but vs the very best teams in the world you cannot hope to win with only one style of play available, you need to be able to switch tactics and put down pressure and aggression whenever it´s needed (sth. SSW really does outstandingly well and which is maybe the biggest flaw of SSB - though SSB understands a tad better how to play around their own weaknesses than C9 does).

JesotOct 5, 20143 votes

Meteos is best on a utility jungler - as are most Western junglers.

I don't get why NA and EU teams try to play the KR meta when they go to Worlds rather than using the strength of the meta they know to play against KR. I feel like NA and EU are behind when they go to Worlds because they are trying to play KR's game rather than their own.

Earl EulrichOct 5, 20142 votes

Though I think this is a general problem of a lot of Teams...sth. they could actually learn from the Challenger Teams comming into the LCS, I think those "upset" wins with sth. like toplane Poppy or Malph just show how many viable picks are out there if a Team is willing to commit to such a Pick and adapt their strategy instead of just trying to follow what everyone else plays. This affects Korean Teams aswell though, I think that´s the great missconception about the Korean-Strenght...while their Top-Teams always seem very far ahead of evryone else people just don´t see the many weaknesses of their "lesser" Teams:

I mean NJWS lost a game taking 0objectives or kills vs Alliance, a team capable of loosing to Kaboom (not wanting to take anything away from Kaboom, but that frankly just shows more how much Alliance has to improve than it speaks for how strong Kaboom is) as the Korean 3rd Place.
KTA (winner of Champions Summer) can really be compared to Fnatic...incredible high skill-ceiling, but inconsistent aswell
The Korean Challenger-Scene is just weak compared to the western as all the Talent is with the big Esports-Organisations and the NLB (Challenger-Series if you want) gets taken over by the loosing teams of Champions once it hits the "Platinum League" (last 16 Teams)

So the Korean System for me excels in getting some Teams ahead of the rest of the world, but on the other hand on average I think they actually aren´t that strong. LCS/LPL is a lot closer competition across all Teams actually. Once other Regions catch up with the coaching/Professionalism(attitude) I wouldn´t be surprised to see the Korean Teams struggle. Right now it´s mostly their mentality keeping them ahead.

SesshomeruOct 5, 20142 votes

It's not that they rely on hai. It's that mechanically he's their worse player but an awesome shot caller.

You're only as good as your weakest link. Rewatch the C9 win and pay attention to how many times Hai got caught and let's SSB grab adavtage. Look at the te deaths and pay attention to Hai getting First blood and instant lane advantage and yet still loses lane.

Hai needs to get better. Period.

AozoraOct 6, 20141 votes

I don't think he's they're worse player by any means. He does get caught out a lot because he's focused so often. Hai also serves as their engage in a lot of matches so it's a lot harder for him to stick around to clean up teamfights, etc. If he were in fact their worse player, I doubt he'd be the one calling shots.

LstrikeOct 6, 20142 votes

Mechanically, NA/EU is on par with Korea and China... We saw that in Worlds in multiple occasions.. C9 even out-rotated SSB. The problem is the teamfights where the Koreans are miles ahead of NA/EU.., As good as Hai's shotcalling is, its still not even close to Korean/Chinese shotcallers..