How Cloud9 Made Camille Look Useless in the First Week of the LCS

In the early LCS season, Camille has been a complete menace in the top lane. She often slips through the ban phase thanks to other high-priority bans, giving her a 47% pick rate through the first week of play. Her high damage output makes laning against her difficult while her mobility with Hookshot makes her even more annoying to punish. After three matches to kick off the LCS, Camille was selected twice going 2-0 with a combined KDA of 10/7/7.

Cloud9 must have been requesting to scrim against Camille in the weekend leading up to their matches, because they forced the champion onto each opponent in Week 1. All three of Cloud9’s opponents selected Camille in the first portion of the draft phase. In fact, Golden Guardians and Immortals picked her first overall for their team. Cloud9 clearly had a plan to face off against Camille, and it surely paid off. Camille went from 2-0 to 2-5  when the weekend was finally over. Three of those losses came at the hands of Cloud9. In that span, Camille players had a combined KDA of 5/19/7. But how exactly did Cloud9 manage to completely neutralize the Camille threat?

Taking Advantage of the Teleport/Ignite Combo

The most interesting development of professional players selecting Camille is their choice of summoner spells. Instead of taking Flash, Camille players lately have been taking Teleport and Ignite. The combo of these two actually fit pretty well into Camille’s game plan. As she battles in lane, Ignite gives her the added kill potential to aggressively pressure her lane opponent. On the other hand, Teleport allows Camille to follow objectives and present a threat across the map when needed. Flash isn’t as necessary as Hookshot allows her to cover a much greater distance with a much smaller cooldown.

The only real downside of not taking flash, is not having an escape option very early in the game. The downside is usually negligible, however, Cloud9 saw the chance to capitalize on the small window of opportunity. Against all three opponents, Cloud9 wasted no time in their attempts to shut down the enemy Camille. Blaber and company came to pressure top lane ten times before the ten-minute mark across the three matches. Almost every gank produced a kill onto the Camille or forced her out of lane.

In the Immortals game alone, Cloud9 brought pressure up to Camille a whopping five times. Revenge was left at 0/4/0 before 10 minutes. Needless to say, Cloud9 had accomplished their mission of dismantling the enemy Camille.

Cloud9 could abuse Camille early game because of their draft choices. Fudge was given Jax twice over the weekend and found himself in numerous positions for success. Jax can jump to close the game onto Camille, but more importantly, has an easy to land stun to set up a follow-up stun or knock-up. On Renekton, Fudge can easily point and click to stun Camille, while never worrying about her flashing away after the crowd control lands. There were even moments of Cloud9 predicting the Hookshot location, guaranteeing an easy kill.

Constant and Consistent Pressure

Once Cloud9 had decisively put their top laner ahead and the opposing Camille behind, they moved to the next phase of their game plan – keeping Camille behind. Often times when a laner gets incredibly far behind, they will relegate themselves to the side lanes to split push and gain back some gold and experience. Unfortunately for Cloud9’s opponents, they didn’t truly get the chance to ever comfortably farm back into the game.

[Related: LCS Power Rankings Week 2: Living on Cloud9]

Golden Guardians’ Niles attempted to split in side lanes, but Fudge’s constant follow up pressure typically forced Niles back to his team. Even worse, Niles couldn’t even attempt to fight Fudge one on one. At that time Jax was too far ahead and a death in a solo fight would open a whole world of trouble for Golden Guardians. TSM’s Huni took a different approach. Instead of splitting off, Huni found himself with his team looking to take fights. While this strategy appeared a bit more successful, Huni hanging around his team allowed Fudge to take to the side lanes and push incredibly hard. At the 20 minute mark, Fudge had a large CS lead over Huni 189 to 145.

Cloud9 found a way to position themselves around the map in a way that would diminish the potential for a Camille return into the game. Overall the rotations around objectives were just faster than the opposing Camille could react. Through this map pressure, Camille had to position in a way that would leave her stuck between farming and team fighting, and ultimately having her do neither.

Team Compositions that Neuter Camille’s Kit

Although briefly mentioned before, it’s important to note just how smart Cloud9 were in their drafts against Camille. The Immortals game in particular highlighted why so many teams are banning Pantheon and Renekton. Fudge and Vulcan were monsters in Cloud9’s third game. A team with multiple stuns makes life for Camille extremely rough. She was unable to dive onto backline priority targets nor was she able to even survive in extended fights. Overall that game was very much over from the draft phase, but the fact that Cloud9 were able to create such a gap before the game even started should indicate just how this team will succeed heading into week 2.

Against both TSM and Golden Guardians, Cloud9 worked around strong disengage champions in order to work around the opposing team’s dive. Galio and Alistar are strong champions to disrupt the opposing Camille thanks to their mobile crowd control. The two are able to get into the Hextech Ultimatum and distract the Camille enough so that the initial target can either escape or fight back. There is certainly never a time where Camille wants to solo fight a Jax or Renekton.

Will Camille Still be Cloud9’s Focus?

It’s tough to say for sure if Cloud9 will continue to force their opponents onto Camille. If players decide to take Flash again, there may be less blowout games than in Week 1. Camille did lose two other games in the opening weekend, but that shouldn’t be enough to completely shut her out of the metagame. With Impact, Ssumday, and Licorice on the docket for Cloud9, expect plenty of similar focus onto top lane. As long as Blaber and Fudge can continue to bully Camille in the top lane, Cloud9 can feel safe about leaving up the Steel Shadow in drafts.

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