The return of CJ Entus

Before CJ Entus took on GE Tigers last week, the remarks of the League Champions Korea (LCK) commentators summed up the situation nicely. "4 hours until GE Tigers and CJ Entus battle for first place," Christopher "MonteCristo" Mykles tweeted. "There’s a sentence I didn’t think I would type." The position the GE Tigers found themselves was in understandable but not exactly predictable considering their preseason, where they finished third. They had been dominant in the LCK so far, but they also hadn't really been tested. CJ Entus was the real surprise. Coming into the season, the team seemed hardly worth mentioning, unless it was in terms of a broken family that should think about using Spring as a learning experience. This is understandable when you consider their recent history.

Darkest Before The Dawn

CJ Entus Blaze and Frost ended Champions Summer 2014 dismally placed, and were completely out of contention for Korea’s Regionals before Worlds. When organizations became restricted to only one team, Korean rosters devolved into a game of Pick-Up-Sticks -- thrown about, then slowly picked over and sorted out. When all was said and done, CJ Entus’ roster was respectable, but quirky, having moved Blaze’s mid laner Kang "Ambition" Chan-yong to his original position of jungle and putting in Frost’s maligned ADC Seon "Space" Ho-san as a starter. The preseason was pretty dismal for CJ. Finishing fifth out of eight teams, critics were quick to point out the complete lack of team synergy in the new singular CJ Entus. But it wasn't just synergy that was troubling; it was the poor individual performances -- Ambition’s tiny champion pool was a liability, Park "Shy" Sang-myeon sometimes was restricted in his top lane play, and Hong "Madlife" Ming-gi couldn't influence the game as he did when he became such a widely-respected support player in the first place.

David vs Goliath

Coming into the LCK season proper, CJ Entus were matched up against SKT T1, who had come out on top of the preseason. Game one saw Easyhoon in SKT's revolving-door mid lane, leaving Faker out of the equation. Despite SKT selecting high priority picks Gnar and Sivir, CJ kept them locked down the entire game. Every CJ team member had a great performance: MaRin's Gnar was kept to 1/3/6 in the face of Shy’s 4/0/7 Dr, Mundo; Ambition had 13 assists in the jungle with Jarvan; and Space did so well on Corki that the champion was banned out in the second game. In Game 2, Faker was swapped in for Easyhoon, but he might as well have not been there at all -- he was shut down completely on his Ahri, finishing at 0/4/1. Space and CoCo didn’t die, playing phenomenally, and Ambition went double-digits in assists again. Who was this CJ Entus? Next up for CJ was NaJin e-mFire. The first game highlighted great performances by Space and Madlife. Combined they went 8/0/13 and dominated the game. NaJin took no chances in the second game: They first-picked Lissandra and took LeBlanc for themselves, removing her from the hands of CoCo, who had under-performed in the previous game on Orianna. Duke’s Lissandra in particular was outstanding. Shy couldn’t be as influential as usual in top lane on Maokai, looking insignificant in comparison to Duke. Space on Kallista just didn’t seem to work out at all. Suddenly locked at 1-1, it was now or never for CJ. They banned out Lissandra -- they weren't dealing with that in top lane again -- first-picked Sivir for Space, and locked in comfort picks LeBlanc and Dr Mundo. This handed NaJin the dreaded Gnar/Jarvan, but CJ had handled that well in game one. In the 55-minute epic that followed, the lack of team synergy that existed for CJ in the preseason was nothing but a distant memory. Both CoCo and Space ended the game with an extraordinary 13 kills each. CoCo's incredible play on LeBlanc earned him MVP of the match. "I gotta say," DoA said at the end of the night, "I wasn’t expecting them to beat SKT, they did that. I wasn’t expecting them to beat NaJin, they did that too. What’s next for CJ?"

What's Next

In Week 2 GE took on Samsung, and they used that set to stamp their dominance on LCK. The school-uniform-clad team looked like stone-cold killers. Even after dropping a match in their next set against Jin Air Green Wings, their strong team dynamics shone, and were never in doubt. Like CJ, GE's games were full of strong individual performances from their entire roster, but they were doing it with ease. Watching CJ, you could see adjustment, cogs turning, compositions tuned. Their set against KT Rolster followed a similar vein as NaJin -- going 1-1 before adjusting, tuning, and then dominating the final game. This is what made CJ's match against GE so highly anticipated -- the subtle similarities and the glaring differences. When the set began, it became evident very early how things were going to go. The drafting of CJ against GE was widely criticized. In the first game, CJ didn’t ban Gnar, putting him in the hands of the best Gnar player in Korea, Song "Smeb" Kyung-ho, who has a 10.0 KDA on the champion after picking him three times in the last two weeks. In the draft of the second game, Monte and DoA said "ban the Gnar" so many times, it almost blurred into one word. CJ Entus did ban the Gnar, giving CJ fans hope. However, CJ faltered again, failing to lock in LeBlanc even though she wasn't banned or claimed in the first or second rounds of picks, gifting her to GE. Considering CoCo's amazing performances on LeBlanc so far in the LCK, it was a mind-blowing decision by CJ. A lost champion select isn't an excuse for a poor performance in game. It is probably the most poignant of losses as it shows a lack of understanding of the opponent, their abilities, their strengths and weaknesses. CJ’s set against GE showed that as far as CJ have come, they still have a lot to learn -- but it also doesn’t take away from what they’ve done. Many teams are often defined by an ace, a singular player through whom a team can be carried or shut down. CJ’s wins highlighted strong individual performances from the entire roster. This is easily illustrated by every member of CJ Entus having earned an MVP except Madlife. Only time will tell if these positive signs from CJ Entus are a flash in the pan, or indicative of something lasting. But it does teach us that nothing is certain. Despite history and statistics, we can still be surprised.

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