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Incarnati0n brings back burst assassins in win over NME

Riot··3 votes·17,139 views

Going 9/0/3 on Ahri, Nicolaj "Incarnati0n" Jensen and Cloud9 dashed to success against Enemy Esports in Week 8 of the NA LCS.

The mid laner finally found himself on a champion he's comfortable with, and what's more, he was confident in the matchup against Tyson "Innox" Kapler's curveball mid Master Yi pick. "I thought it was pretty weird," he said with a laugh. "I used to play Master Yi myself, but I thought the matchup against Ahri was not very good for Master Yi, so it came as a surprise to me."

"Ahri is very mobile and Master Yi can't really pressure Ahri and has a hard time dealing with her outside of laning phase," he explains.

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He certainly brought the pressure though, with charming outplays, 200 CS, and two completed items by 20 minutes. His stellar play was only bolstered by his familiarity with the Nine-Tailed Fox and the new AP item changes from Patch 5.13. "You can have a strong power spike early on, whereas before, you couldn't really wait for the Needlessly Large Rod because it cost too much money."

"Now you can get it on first base," he continues. "It can make these burst assassin champions much more viable." He also explains how he was much more at ease in this game since he knows Ahri's limits as a champion -- and because he had former mid laner Hai "Hai" Lam backing him up from the jungle.

"This game I had a lot of control over my lane, and I got an early blue buff from Hai, which helped as well," he says. "I definitely think it helps that he used to be a mid laner, because if you're jungling and you've played mid lane before, then you understand what a mid laner needs and how to help him better. So playing with Hai makes it a lot easier for me as well."

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Hai also does a great job of keeping everyone's spirits up throughout a match, according to Incarnati0n. "Playing with Hai, he always talks and he never lets the negativity get to him, so that helps a lot." The new jungler keeps Cloud9 motivated with his perpetual positivity, and of course, "his shotcalling is also really good," Incarnati0n adds.

On the back of the decisive calls of Hai and the dominant play of Incarnati0n, C9 found a winning equation today, and it looks as though things are swinging in the right direction. "There's a lot of [team cohesion]," Incarnati0n says of the state of C9. "From here on, I think it can only get better."

Catch up on the detailed stats from Cloud9's victory against Enemy here, and to watch every other match from the LCS, head over to our spoiler-free VODs page.

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26 Comments

Magic Mo12 votes

Being a C9 fan, I'm definitely delighted they snagged these last two wins, but one of them is against a fairly inconsistent team and another is against a lower-tier team. For me, the real game will be when they go against TSM, maybe even CLG.

I feel like they can beat both of these teams since they both tend not to perform consistently at the ends of splits. Regardless, this is definitely a marked improvement in C9's history for this split. I hope they can keep it up.

P.S. @SpiNN Great read!

RiotSpinneli9 votes

They're looking better each week! And I agree -- hope they can keep it up! Incarnati0n seemed in really high spirits today, and I know that them having having fans like you support them means a TON. Thanks for reading! <3

MilkIsABadChoice2 votes

This is all true, but Meteos has had a rough time of it aswell :'(

JimmyNtheKudos1 votes

It's so terrible that right when they're in their upswing, they're WIn/Loss record won't get them into playoffs. They're basically playing for not being auto-relegated.

mattdj20021 votes

They're actually playing for a shot to qualify for worlds. TDK is already auto-relegated. If they finish 7th (currently 1 game back) they will still have enough championship points to be in the NA qualifier gauntlet which will not include whoever wins summer and the highest point total that didn't win summer. They would most likely be the 2 or 3 seed in that event due to their 70 points they have now. Reminds me of Najin White Shield in Season 4. They ran the Korean Gauntlet from the last seed and did quite well at worlds.

JimmyNtheKudos1 votes

Oh, I didn't realize they could still participate for Worlds. I wrongly assumed that if they didn't make it into playoffs they wouldn't make it to worlds. I guess the point system ended up working for someone. By auto-relegated I meant having to play in the promotion tournament.

xJLx MCHammer7 votes

Hey first time Incarnation won his lane without much jungle intervention. Shame is was against a Master Yi

Fflarn6 votes

I really wish Riot would improve it's esports reporting. These super quick, ultra hype with little substance articles are substantively lacking. Cloud 9 won against a bottom bracket team who let Balls play Rumble, an essential no-no in NA LCS especially now that Rumble is even stronger, and picked a mid lane Yi into an Ahri in a patch where AP items have been improved.

Yes, C9 played well against NME who had a terrible ban/pick. Yes, it's nice to see them winning. But lets hold off the ticker tape parade, and a much more appropriate topic would have been those brilliant Rumble ultimates wrecking NME in team fights rather than lauding Incarnation, who has preformed way under expectation this split, for winning a lopsided lane match.

Earl Eulrich1 votes

exactly my thoughts when reading that. I think they´re trying way too hard to make C9 (and especially the addition of Incarnation) look good here, while they are the most underperforming team on the planet in regards to the expectations connected with the brand. They sure are improving since Hai is back, but they´re still way off the mark...and as Hai still suffers health issues this is a very short sighted solution to their problems.

Vizzo1 votes

Whenever you see an article written by Leah Jackson just know you will not get substance. If you know anything about her history with esports she used to be the host of the IGN Arena podcast before moving to Riot. If you go back and watch some of the episodes you can see that she never really added anything interesting to the discussions. She pretty much got carried by the other members of the podcast team. I'm sure she's trying her hardest but she's just not knowledgeable enough to write articles that appeal to anyone beyond the casual fan. Think of her knowledge of the game as silver league or below. Anyone with a gold or higher understanding will not see anything of value in her articles until she starts gaining more knowledge about the intricacies of the game. She isn't very good at the game either and it's rare to have a person like Monte Cristo or Froskurin who don't play the game very often or on a high level but can still show they have a very high level of UNDERSTANDING of the game.

Ixnay3 votes

Finally incarnation gets to play what he is most comfortable on and look at the result

JHei2 votes

C9 NA last hope

KazaLyn Shao1 votes

Then we're doomed.

Eleshakai2 votes

It was a good win... but I mean, they DID let Balls get Rumble in a patch where Rumble is stronger than ever... sure his statline wasn't quite as impressie as Incarnation, but holy crap he's still a monster on that champ.

JimmyNtheKudos1 votes

Those Equalizers omfg

Eleshakai1 votes

{quoted}

Those Equalizers omfg

and that 3 man dive on him where he lasted like... 20 seconds and almost got two kills...

Holy crap.

Ixnay1 votes

Finally incarnation gets to play what he is most comfortable on and look at the result

Narwhals1 votes

Honestly after the PTL talk of Incarnati0n he stepped his game up the past 2 games and i really want to hear just a segment of hai just randomly blubbering on with random talk XD. but this article hopefully is true and C9 is on the upswing from here just got a 3 games to go and they can easily take all 3 if they play there game and hai is just blubbering on and on.

Aeyir1 votes

Shame they lost today. But Incarnati0n is starting to rise to god status.

IcyPepper1 votes

Why does the midlaner always get the hype? :c

edit: I take that back. Read the article. Incarnati0n praised his team greatly. Team spirit ftw.

Earl Eulrich1 votes

guess that all stems from the "faker-hype" somewhat. Maybe watch some LPL, there most hype is on the supports/junglers, because they actually appreciate the less visible things they do for their teams.

IcyPepper1 votes

LPL, got it.

But seriously, what's with the "faker-hype?" I don't hear anything about the rest of Faker's team, just Faker. Does he truly solo carry, or does his team just not share the glory?

Earl Eulrich1 votes

ah well, he sure is among the best 5 midlaners in the world - but SKT also funnels most of their ressources into him so he can get ahead and carry. No player can truly solocarry a game on the top-lvl.

Snake0Eater1 votes

Honestly, if you watch the LCK all of Faker's team gets a lot of praise. They're all amazing players. Monte and the other casters do a fantastic job recognizing all of the players for their success but also do not hesitate to point out their downfalls.

Earl Eulrich1 votes

If you follow them since S3 you clearly notice a strong bias towards Faker (#thingsFakerdoes). In S3 the team had been Carried mostly by Bengi and Poohmandu controlling the vision beautifully and setting up a lot of Catches for Faker to snowball, yet in the end all the hype went towards Faker and Bengi got a lot of blame as soon as things didn´t work out for them as easily anymore in S4.

Alsef1 votes

I have been a fan of Cloud 9 Since season 3 and Meteos was my favorite player on Cloud 9 but the change was needed I think if Cloud 9 can survive and not be relegated then next Split they will do alot better and maybe not be a bottom team anymore hopefully everything will work out for Cloud 9.

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