The LCS Summer Split begins in just a couple of weeks. After a close spring playoffs and
TSM's disappointing time at MSI,
is C9 poised to be the strongest team in NA?
I think we're going to see a very similar situation as the last split.
I think both teams have great talent and outside of that they sort of live or die by communication
and decision making.
Really any team could have won the playoffs last split and TSM didn't exactly demonstrate
fantastic decision making at MSI.
So I think we're going to see similar competition between them next split.
I think it's going to be the same thing as last split, but in a different wording.
I think C9 last split heavily underperformed because they kept the same roster so they
were supposed to just dominate the region.
They were a top three split, but they came in and their improvement was not very good,
in my opinion.
You know, sure they had worked with Ray.
I think Impact in general just played really bad throughout the season.
His laning phase was just horrendous but he's still good at teamfighting so people just
tend to overlook his faults.
They working with Ray but he has weird teamfight positioning as well.
And so generally I think C9 is going to come in as a top three contender, but they're not
going to end rank one.
At the end of the day, they're going to have to beat TSM again and twice they have collapsed
in the finals.
Until they can actually get to the point where they can hold their own in a best of series
against TSM, I don't see them coming out ahead in this Summer Split.
Does CLG go up in the power rankings with their Dardoch acquisition?
CLG is trying to get a little spicy, it feels like.
Obviously Dardoch has a reputation that precedes him in game and out of game, and performance
that kind of swings and maybe a personality that kind of swings.
CLG's actually doing a lot of cutesy summer campy teamwork exercises, so I'll be optimistic
about it.
CLG's always been a team that's been greater than the sum of their parts.
That's how I always see CLG.
A lot of people confuse them because they're like oh why do they always underperform or
overperform in certain situations.
I just think in general the way that the coaching staff understands the game is very unique
and they make smarter players.
And I think that in this situation Xmithie had a terrible spring split.
Coming from the biggest Xmithie lover possible, he was the worst jungler or second worst jungler in
the entire region last split and I think any upgrade is an upgrade for them.
I think even with that in mind, they could have been top three last split for sure and
they could have, that would have been really good.
I don't think -- even with an underperforming jungler to the largest degree you can underperform,
they could have been top three.
And this season I think, easy upgrade.
I think CLG will improve with having Dardoch.
But I think the jump is just quite minimal to me, really.
There is so much that CLG needs to work on and I think that one of the big reasons for
Dardoch coming in is that he's 19.
You've got Xmithie, 26 year old, Sejuani becomes meta.
You really can't have that in that team at the time, so it makes sense.
But let's remember that there is a video circulating of CLG playing a great game of don't touch
the floor.
The floor is lava?
The floor is lava.
That's a lot of teamwork.
Is that with or without--
It was with Dardoch yeah.
Some would say he was instrumental in their successful floor crossing.
The way I see it if any team can handle Dardoch, it's CLG.
I think they have some of the best framework in terms of coaching.
Like I respect a lot of team coaching differently.
For instance, I think Parth -- TSM -- he's even gone on record saying that he developed
systems for players, like procedural systems not only schedule-wise but how they get incrementally
better as a team.
I think he's fantastic at doing that.
I think Tony is a player who I have a lot of respect for to be able to not only create
systems but also create smarter players, again and all of that -- he's able to at some points
bring out the best in players and if you're able to bring out an average in Dardoch as
well as keep his mental state sane then I think he's going to be a great player.
I think my problem with Dardoch coming onto the team is similar to a point that Thorin
had made a while ago that I find that Dardoch's synergy really came out when he was on Team
Liquid with Piglet where he was playing with a player that clearly was above his respect
in terms of what he had accomplished.
So Piglet, a world champion, incredible work ethic.
I mean this guy won finals and was weeping because he didn't play well.
So having a player like that, this incredible superstar, I think really works well with
Dardoch, especially
because if you've seen how he interacts with his team he's a very amicable person, always
very friendly, very touchy and that's something that's huge in Korean culture, whereas you
don't have that here in the States.
It's very, very, more secluded.
And I just don't think that's the environment that he really would thrive in.
Like I would want to see him maybe play with Ssumday, like that would be a sick combination.
Just having those two players that can really push themselves to the next level and in CLG,
I don't see that there is a player like that.
I see that they have players that can mold him into that system as opposed to use him
as the pinnacle for what they should revolve the team around.
I don't think he should ever be a pinnacle of the team.
Because I think that he is not consistent enough as a player to be able to do that.
I think in all the teams he's been he's been the focal point because jungle tends to snowball
early game.
He should be a tool, but he should not be the focus.
And that's what CLG is really good at being able to do.
They bring in a lot of tools into the entire bucket and they are able to use whichever
the best tool fits the given situation.
But I feel like you're not sharpening this tool.
Like you're keeping it not as sharp as it could be.
I feel like there's so much potential in this player at 19 years old.
If you pair him with a midlaner that would be insane, like a Bjergsen or a midlaner that
is just really a hard carry as opposed to somebody like Huhi who was more of a supportive
type midlaner that is not as consistent.
Would you not see his potential go further.
I think in terms of midlaners in North America there's none that have available jungle spots.
So you talk about, great, best midlaners you think Jensen, Bjerg, probably you put Froggen
up there.
And you put, what maybe one other player, like Ryu.
But none of these have available jungle spots so actually Huhi is if anywhere probably around
number five or six in the midlane, so I think it's fine.
I understand your argument.
I understand Thorin's argument.
It's the same argument I made for Doublelift.
Doublelift, terrible people skills way back when and over the years he improves steadily,
but when he joins TSM he can't say anything because he has the best player in the region
on his team.
So if he makes a mistake, it wasn't his fault, so I guess I got to deal with it.
That's exactly it that's like how Huni's perceived ego was immediately brought down.
You put him with a player like Faker, you got to shut up because now you are actually
dealing with somebody that is better than you, that can actually show you how to play
the game better.
Who on CLG besides maybe Aphromoo would show Dardoch how to play the game better?
And coaching staff, obviously.
I think of all of them could show him how to play the game better because I think his
understanding the game is not as good as he thinks.
But I think Aphromoo will do it.
I've worked with Aphromoo, he's the person who you expect to be a leader.
I think his relative performance in normal split, not great up until playoffs.
Like the weeks leading up to playoffs he actually played fantastic.
But he's the type of person who's able to lead a team.
I think with him, working with the rest of the team, you'd be surprised.
So you think they're going to make like top three?
I think it'll be top four.
CLG top four.
"Dardoch is a tool" is all I'm pulling out of this.
I love the point of CLG is a team without pinnacles, and Dardoch shouldn't be the pinnacle,
either from lack of experience or even you can see in his past performance.
When a team lives or dies by Dardoch, it never turns out so well.
You wouldn't want to live or die exactly, you would want to just set him up for success.
Think of it like a jungler like the Gigabyte Marines' Levi, right?
The team revolved around him quite heavily, at times could succeed without him.
So when the focus revolves around the player that can really make plays happen then you
have this kind of more, in the meta where the jungler is more successful now, obviously
maybe it gets changed and it's not so effective and it's fine to just have him on the backpedal,
sure.
But you still want to be capable of achieving a situation where he has to take charge and
he can carry.
I don't really understand this because it's like OK well, in what facet can you set up
the jungler?
Aside from having all winning lanes, so you just want to play with better players who
win lane.
Well let me look at the team so far.
Aphromoo and Stixxay, they're going to be like third.
They were top three this season, maybe next season when Doublelift comes back they're
number four.
It's still a really, really good botlane duo, they're going to have pressure in the lane.
The way top lane Darshan ended the split I thought super fantastic actually.
His top lane play, aside from when he suicided on Camille, was actually really, really good
going to the of end this split.
I'll put them at like number five.
You know, same thing with midlane, number five.
I think that, and of all the teams that play in the LCS, CLG sets up the junglers the best
because they have usually the most unique and best level ones of all the teams playing.
When you think about in terms of ingenuity and throughout the years creativity on level
ones, CLG has always been the best team to do that.
So I think of all the teams you would maybe want to put him on -- Dardoch would want to
join CLG the most because they tend to set up certain players the best possible, and
jungle is no exception.
I mean I would want to have him kept on Immortals and just revolve the team around him, like
the acquisition of Olleh and Cody Sun were some of the most bizarre things ever and even
Flame had such an underperforming thing.
If they had just kept maybe Pobelter and Dardoch and had the entire three revamped around them,
now you can have a lot more success.
Olleh and Cody Sun were some of the best at their position at the end of the split, in
my opinion.
I think they were top four -- but these are top five, top four, that's not enough.
The thing is it's like, he's not going to be able to join a team that's top three, like
in my opinion.
Well there's imports, just buy players from Korea.
There's so many player, just grab them in.
You have no imports thoughts on Pobelter and Dardoch.
I know.
I'm pretty sure they both got into problems with -- Yeah, of course.
Oh yeah there's problems around, but that's not where we can, we can't really sit here
and discuss that openly.
Yeah, so I don't know.
I don't think Pobelter is the person who will work with him either.
Like you want someone who is able to be flexible, to be able to sacrifice for his lane, for
the jungler.
And Pobelter is a very, very standard midlaner that plays out all the games normally, but
he's very high inconsistency, you know.
I'm telling you, if there's a team that's willing to sacrifice certain areas of their
gameplay to make another player perform, it's CLG.
So you think CLG is just going to sacrifice themselves to make Dardoch be the best player
possible?
Huhi usually sacrifices too much, and in fact, part of the reason why his relative growth
happened during this split was because he learned that he was giving up too much in
his lane to make his other teammates better.
That was an issue we had last MSI as well, for some years ago, so yes.
Yeah but this is a split where I thought he really ended up being like a pretty good maintainer.
I think, maybe the ego problems aside from Dardoch that he will -- if any team is going
to help him improve to the highest extent, maybe not make him a world caliber team, but
have his personal growth be as high as it possibly can, I think it's going to be CLG.
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