LCS Recap: Cloud9 vs OpTic Gaming

Week 3 of the LCS has arrived as today Cloud9 went up against OpTic Gaming. The questions coming into this match was whether or not OpTic’s 4-0 start was for real and could Cloud9 clean up the sloppy play from last week?

draft phase

To start the draft Cloud9 first picked Akali, which is becoming more of a common pick for this team. It’s a pick that has lost some strength but one that can still 100 to 0 someone. OpTic then responded with Ryze & Yuumi, a champion that’s banned often but one that made it through the first ban phase. Cloud9 quickly picked Gragas & Yasuo, a very capable duo of knock-ups if done correctly. For the rest of the draft phase, OpTic rounded out their team with Sivir, Skarner and Gangplank while Cloud9 finished off with Ezreal & Braum, a very defensive bot-lane.

Overall, Optic had a bit more scaling to late game with their comp compared to Cloud9 but could fall off the road if Cloud9 could execute their knock-up combo correctly with Gragas, Yasuo & Braum. As long as Cloud9 were able to have cleaner teamfights this time around compared to last week, this game was in their favor.

game phase

At 06:29 into the game, Robert “Blaber” Huang & Yasin “Nisqy” Dinçer caught out William “Meteos” Hartman around the mid-river for first blood onto Nisqy’s Yasuo. This gave him a great start to the game. Just a minute later, Eric “Licorice” Ritchie was able to solo kill Niship “Dhokla” Doshi in the top lane with his Akali into Gangplank. Meanwhile in the bot-lane during this early action, Zach “Sneaky” Scuderi & Tristan “Zeyzal” Stidam were having a bit of a tough laning phase into Sivir/Yuumi which was expected, even with a bit more of a defensive bot-lane.

After another kill for Licorice a few minutes afterwards, the first team fight happened for Cloud9 around 14:27 into the game and despite a few kills for Cloud9, Optic won the team fight with four kills compared to Cloud9’s two kills which were obtained by Zeyzal unfortunately. Six minutes later, Blaber & Nisqy were able to catch out Crown in the side-lane and get another kill for Nisqy along with another kill a minute later as well.

From that point in the game, Cloud9 were able to secure baron, take down more essential objectives and win the rest of the team-fights in the game in a convincing fashion and take down the undefeated Optic Gaming

Conclusion

Cloud9 in this game looked much better compared to last week despite the small hiccup around the 14: 27-minute mark. Their coordination was better and they were able to perform the essentials of their champions without much of a struggle. Despite losing the tower in nine minutes and having a bit of a tough laning phase, Sneaky & Zeyzal held on to their own and were able to be relevant pieces to the team’s victory.

MVP OF THE GAME: NISQY

Nisqy looked absolutely phenomenal on Yasuo today, being able to have a not so tough laning phase and getting himself the kills needed around the early to the start of the mid-game in order to start his power spike sooner. Most importantly, he was one of the most crucial pieces for Cloud9 winning the team-fights later into the game without being an anchor. He is the MVP for this game.

Cloud9 will look to end the weekend 2-0 against their longtime rivals Team Solo Mid tomorrow 2:00 PM PST.

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