Does Cloud 9 rely on Hai too much?

Aozora·10/4/2014, 11:57:08 PM·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

12tales10/5/2014, 12:30:05 AM8 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.

Earl Eulrich10/5/2014, 12:07:20 AM3 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).

Sesshomeru10/5/2014, 10:38:05 PM2 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.

Lstrike10/6/2014, 1:05:26 PM2 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..