It's easy to overhype LCS league leaders. The backlash from the franchise fans, combined with our own desire to be internationally dominant, often lead us into overinflated narratives. This, combined with how much harder it is to identify unpunished mistakes for analysts, builds opinions often detached from reality. Come Worlds, these judgments do not survive contact with reality. The Rift don't lie.

The current iteration of C9 is no exception. Even the weakened TSM has them tied in series victories, albeit sporting less total victories. Unless something changes radically, C9 will have a very hard time leading the league come playoffs. The mistakes shown in this series are far from a consequence of their jungle swap, and instead show how this change has failed to address core problems. 

Game 1

The plan from this game is straightforward for Cloud 9 -- a 4-1 composition, using Varus and Corki for midgame poke and siege. If they reach midgame even, they are very likely lead from tower gold. This can later be transitioned into a quick baron kill by C9's 3 ADCs, using poke to gain vision control of the pit. 

On the other hand, TSM is looking to starve C9's composition from the needed advantage to compensate Shen's low teamfight impact. They look to either get early gold from Kha'zix or stall until the mid to late game, where their teamfight comp can bash C9 if they are not sufficiently ahead.

Unfortunately for C9, their plan never comes to fruition. At minute fourteen, it looks like everything is on track. They are 1.5K ahead in gold and have river vision control. An unfortunate pathing by Graves gives TSM control of the dragon pit, but this is not a main concern of the game. It would not be reasonable to expect a rookie player to be on point with rotations. Contractz has not yet had enough of a chance to grow.

The same can not be said from the veterans. Even if they hadn't got caught on the pit, the strategy they chose was far from reasonable. There is no reason to try and steal a dragon from Kha'zix jungle using simply a Varus Q (Piercing Arrow). The fact that all three members grouped there to watch TSM take dragon is almost something from a Solo queue playbook. Invoking a chess term, this could be called “Praying League of Legends”. 

Understandably, losing an Earth Dragon with a poke composition is a hard blow, but staying to watch is not a constructive decision. Cloud 9 renounce rotating mid for some chip damage on the tier 1 tower, and perhaps strengthen their top side. 

Getting caught is a positional mistake, born from an intuitional misunderstanding of positioning, and thus it is not a very good critique to make here. Don't get caught is almost at the level of “Remember, always land your skillshots” as far as analysis goes. However, missing a chance for chip shows poor understanding of the composition and its win conditions. 

Up until minute 20, C9 engages in an awkward 1-3-1, for which the motives or objectives are not very clear. No use is made of the package, and no important powerspike is achieved. While they are a little bit behind in gold from the dragon misstep, this is not enough of a justification to just stall and farm. The clock is ticking, unless they get some advantage they will most definitely get outscaled by TSM. While it is true that, theoretically, C9 should outscale TSM come the 5-item mark, this is not a realistic perspective. The lack of a delivery mechanism for Shen, combined with the strength of TSM's composition in the mid to late game means that, unless they reach midgame ahead, TSM will just roll over them with straight teamfights.

At this point, they group mid to try and get some damage while TSM take another dragon, only to go back to a 1-3-1 afterwards. We can see here a very heavy pattern of passiveness. Time is playing against them, but they are only trading farm and waiting. 

Perhaps C9 was hoping to outrotate Orianna to get some damage on midlane, but this never happens. The semi-pick composition nature of TSM, Kha'zix and Jhin, makes the 1-3-1 extremely unprofitable. Corki is at risk of getting picked, and the same is true for Varus on the midlane should he overextend. They would be far stronger grouped as four. As C9 trade farm, Maokai simply becomes impossible to deal with. 

Just before the 23 minute mark, they finally decide to push as 4 into the midlane tower. We can see this is the point of the composition very clearly, seeing how close they come to get the tower and be safe. Had C9 set up slow pushes and sieged as four, the result of the game might have been very different.

Getting caught in the midlane is far from the same mistake it was on the first dragon. When you siege a teamfighting comp, you have to be prepared to go in time and time again to get chip damage. It is something that has to be done patiently, not meant to be just one all in attack. Overcommiting here completely misses the point of poke and siege.

Game 3

It doesn't feel very fair to criticize the Cloud 9 players for this game. While we, as viewers, are unaware of how much they influenced the draft, they had very little chance of success once the game actually started. 

As it stands, TSM is looking to play split in a 1-3-1 situation. Taking Shen makes it awkward for C9 to play a pick composition. This weakens the Kha'zix pick. Ashe further neutralizes the bug, helping to keep him controlled with additional vision, protecting Graves from invades and playing against early snowball. Combined with Karma, TSM have a hard pushing bottom lane that can produce early pressure, further relieving threat from possible invades.

As one ponders about C9's composition, it becomes very hard to fin an actual game plan that can lead to victory for this composition. What are C9 to do once TSM start the 1-3-1?

If you mirror the 1-3-1, you are going to have it pretty hard. None of C9's splitpushers can stop a Shen ultimate (Stand United). Zed would not only function as Shen delivery in a possible teamfight, but can, whenever he chooses, gank whoever Zed is fighting. It's pretty clear that 1-3-1 is not a viable plan.

This is only the beginning of Cloud 9's demise. They have a weak siege, with clearly less waveclear than TSM, and almost no way to force an engage. Even when Rumble and Zyra do count with powerful aoe crowd control, both ultimates work way better when you are being engaged onto. As an engage tool, they fall flat against Karma speed buffs and a Shen shield.

We see as we look deeper into Cloud 9's plan, that there is no plan. TSM's bottom lane heavily impairs early snowball and, even when they actually managed to get early kills, it did not matter. They don't even count with a decent tank to bait a Baron. 

Whenever you have a composition with no tanks, you will most likely want a way to get ahead early. This gives you extra gold and experience over your opponent, translated into a temporal tankiness as they catch up. Not only does Cloud 9 not have this way to get ahead, but they are playing one of the squishiest possible compositions against Bjergsen's Zed -- not a pretty picture.

The biggest force messing with this draft is the Ekko pick. We do not know how much of this pick was Reapered and how much of it was Jensen. Maybe even other agents played a role on this pick, so its hard to point fingers here. 

What's clear is that this comp has a little bit of everything, and ends up being too spread out. Some splitpush in Ekko. A reasonable amount of assassination, in the form of Ekko, Kha'zix and Jhin. But TSM have Shen. Counterengage in Rumble and Zyra, but no engage on TSM. Overall, these styles are not very psynergistic with each other and poorly matched against TSM's composition. C9 has no actual game plan.  

Both Orianna and Azir would have made far more sense into C9's composition, and I find little to no reason to gloss over them and pick Ekko. While in the first game the problem was not understanding win conditions, the last game had no win conditions to understand. 

It is clear now that C9 faced heavy mistakes on their side during this series. Wasting ten minutes as you get outscaled is a very big mistake, and one can't help but wonder why C9 choose this line of play. Drafting no win conditions is not something that you should be seeing when the top two teams of the league are facing each other.  

______

Cloud 9 is still leading the North American LCS, but they might soon see themselves getting surpassed if these structural problems are not addressed. Even if they manage to hold first place at NA, this will not fly against Korea. The draft is easier to fix, but being unable to be proactive is a major structural problem for any team, and many have not been able to fix it thorough history. 

The gap will not close itself, it can only be closed. The biggest mistake right now is failing to acknowledge mistakes, while there is still a lot of time to work on them before worlds. It's up to teams not to rest on their laurels, and up to analyst not to give them enough to rest on.

If you enjoyed this content, follow the author for more at @Cabramaravilla.

Splash images courtesy of Riot Games.