Kamikazplatypus
2015-02-11 12:37:49
Cloud 9 is a team that is notorious for having an immaculate pick and ban phase and for using it to gain a strategic advantage against their opponents. Cloud 9 also has a playstyle that revolves around objective control and slowly building an advantage throughout the game; because of this their success has been very reliant on their pick ban phase.
With the start of the 2015 season we saw one of the few times where not only did Cloud 9 struggle in game but they struggled to obtain a solid team composition through the pick and ban phase; because of this struggle they are currently sitting in a 5-way tie for 3rd place in the NA LCS. What makes this result truly terrifying is that if you went back a single week, you would have seen C9 at the bottom of the table with a troubling 1-3 record.
WEEK 1: 0-2
The kickoff of the NA LCS was the battle between the top teams of previous seasons. As the pick and ban phase began, it seemed to tell a very different tale. TSM opted for the standard bans of the flex top/mid lane champions Kassadin and Lissandra as well as taking away Rumble from Balls, which doesn’t stir much discussion. C9’s bans raise a few questions however, the first being the questionable Nidalee ban (keep in mind this was not the patch where jungle Nidalee was a dominant force) as well as the Tristana ban. This is even more bizarre given it was the first ban they used. It could be argued that TSM possibly was using these picks behind closed doors, but if this was not the case it should have definitely been a red flag for the team’s drafting strategy.
The strategy that was put into place initially by C9 was very potent: by picking Sivir and Gnar they at least guarantee that they have a part of an engage comp that's proven powerful on this patch. What made no sense was that the obvious options left open to round out the comp such as Jarvan (to complete the infamous Gnarvan combo) and Annie to use in conjunction with the Sivir to run a Korean style engage comp were untouched. Instead of running this composition full of strong picks, they opted for Elise and Thresh. While a point could be made for why Thresh is useful there was no way that Elise should be picked on this patch, especially when other dominant picks were left open.
The final nail in the coffin for C9 was that their last pick: Hai’s Fizz. Due to C9 having red side and waiting for the last rotation to snag up their mid laner, this should have been a heavy counter-pick opportunity to whatever TSM chose. Instead, they opted for a champion that Hai had struggled to have success with in the past as well as one that does not perform very well against champions like Janna and Rek’Sai, who can actively lock him down and remove his assassination potential. If C9 really wanted an assassin, they could have easily picked Zed who would have fit the comp much better and offeres a much stronger laner compared to Fizz. Alternatively, Hai could have picked Morgana or Lulu to fill out the engage/pick potential. Admittedly, this would have left the team with a very low damage composition.
This game is much harder to find fault in since there wasn’t many “glaring issues”. What was quite interesting was that Fizz was banned against Hai. Likely it was just a ban to take away something that Hai was comfortable with, which is what their previous day’s pick suggested (despite his failure in executing the pick). However, during the pick-ban, Gravity left open 3 high value picks for first rotations, thus allowing them to take Kassadin and Morgana. This pairing is very strong since both of these picks offer a ton of flexibility in where they can go and what they can add to the team.
Where the pick ban for C9 falls apart is when they lock in Sion, a very bizarre pick as he is effectively an average laner who can wave clear relatively well; but never really has kill pressure and who's focus is to turn into a massive wall bringing a couple of knock-ups in the late game. What makes the 2nd rotation Sion a problem is that without knowing where Kassadin or Morgana are going, it is hard to predict whether or not a lane swap could be forced or even who he could be laning against (should Kassadin go mid and Morgana go support). Even more, he didn’t know what AD Carry the other team would pick.
The point where the comp was no longer salvageable was when Kog’Maw and Orianna were picked, turning C9’s team into a "protect the hyper-carry" composition. This composition relied heavily on hitting shockwaves and having all of the pieces land perfectly in place. GV’s team had numerous engage chances and even some pick avoidance with Morgana. Essentially if C9 wanted to win a fight they would need to stop Kassadin and Vi from getting into the back line and prevent Zed from picking someone off without having enough kill pressure on GV’s backline.
Unlike the C9 VS TSM game this pick ban wasn’t just a mistake by C9 but also a big success for GV for not revealing the intentions of their composition by throwing out some strong flex picks in their first rotation and baiting out a Rek’Sai pick from C9.
WEEK 2 : 1-1
This was C9’s first win of the split so far, and boy was it a spectacle. C9 banned away a bunch of mid laners (Azir, Lulu, and Cassiopeia) to TL's bans of: Rumble, Kassadin and Rek’Sai. This was standard but interesting since TL didn’t catch on that C9 really wanted Lissandra, which made C9’s picks much easier to pull off.
What makes C9’s draft this game very questionable, however, is picking Kalista into the terrifying Gnarvan combo. This was a massive risk if not for the solid combination of crowd control from Lissandra, Annie and even Kalista herself. Unfortunately, showing that they would play Kalista into such strong crowd control comps will likely put Kalista on the must ban list along with Rumble when playing against C9.
The only real set of complaints that could be made is that TL was given a ton of strong picks, including Gnarvan as well as Sivir and Leona. This could have really been a problem for C9, but they played their composition well (despite this game being where Piglet had no masteries…)
This pick-ban phase was more or less a wash in terms of who won, but it can be said that C9 prioritizing a blind pick Leblanc was probably not very advisable considering that there was a plethora of mid laners for C9 to use their counter picks on. Additionally, Janna (or even Morgana) could have been taken in her place to prevent showing the real core of the comp (since Rek’Sai is just a strong pick that C9 clearly values highly and would have likely picked anyway).
It is quite odd to see a player like Hai having a champion like Leblanc first picked for him. If anything this shows one of the issues with C9, as this was the second time they disregarded the potential of a counter-pick (Kalista after seeing Gnarvan is another example). Even more than the previous example mentioned, they did this with a player who had been struggling against other mid laners and coming up short, especially when it came to applying global pressure.
Overall this comp has a distinct lack of identity and was essentially just a composition of strong picks thrown together. Against a composition with Vi in it, you can’t afford to have disjointed picks like this due to her ability to disrupt team fights (especially since CLG took Morgana in second rotation to deny the counter play that Morgana offers against VI).
WEEK 3 : 2-0
This week showed a massive return to form for C9 in the pick-ban phase. Not only are they taking compositions that are cohesive, but they very rarely gave away “free” picks to the other team unless they got exactly what they wanted. Additionally, they were capable of drawing numerous target bans, like Kalista bans against Sneaky and the “standard” Rumble ban against Balls.
The composition they ran against T8 was a decently strong dive/engage composition. They also managed to take away Annie after T8 locked in Sivir and Jarvan, but what makes this denial solid is that it actually helps to further their pick comp.
The major issues with this champion select, however, is that they almost gave T8 the “Season 5 Special” of Gnarvan Sivir (with engage support like Leona/Annie). This could have been problematic had C9 not secured a strong lead. Conversely, had T8 picked Gnar instead of Irelia, this game could have had a real chance of going T8’s way.
What truly made this draft advantageous to C9 was that T8 revealed their double AD comp very early. C9 was already two steps ahead by picking a composition oriented around picking people off and diving their squishy back line.
This game displayed C9 at their best against a team that seemed very keen on out-picking themselves by choosing a very bizarre comp that, at its core, was a pick/siege comp, but never truly excelled at either of those things. Janna functioned (or tried to) as a "get-out-of-poor-fights-free" card. C9 managed to secure a strong composition and even Rumble for Balls. Additionally, they learned from past mistakes and sat on their mid pick until the end as well as securing Morgana to help deny picks and offer more pick potential for their team.
What really threw Coast into a tough position was taking Lucian (who fell quickly from grace since Graves pushed him out) as well as allowing Balls to take one his signature champion, Rumble. Essentially, this pick-ban was complete textbook accuracy for C9 and gave them a clear edge going into the game.
Hopefully C9 can continue the momentum from their previous week and continues implementing their recent levels of dominance in pick bans rather than falling back to their glaring mistakes that plagued them in the first two weeks. Without the stellar pick bans of past it will be hard for C9 to find consistent success like they have had in seasons past.
All of this being said, by simply showing the rocky pick ban in the first weeks, some cracks are showing that could possibly crop up as new patches and champions are moved to the LCS stage, and even allow for some of the middle of the pack teams to take some more games off C9 during the pivotal “new patch” weeks throughout the remainder of the season.
All photos courtesy of Lolesports and the stream. If you enjoyed this content, feel free to follow the author on Twitter at @kamikazplatypus for more.
