The Golden Guardians handed Cloud9 their first loss of the season off of a comfort pick draft and a few perfectly played fights in the mid-game. After a frustrating loss to Clutch Gaming the other day, the Guardians had a much more proactive and mechanically sound game.
The Guardians started the draft by banning the gimmicks and new champions, getting rid of Sona, Yuumi and Sylas. Cloud9 then made the mistake of not banning Kim “Olleh” Joo-sung’s Tahm Kench, and instead went for banning the carry AD flex picks.
The Guardians came out of draft with a composition that they had so much success on in Week One. Matthew “Deftly” Chen on a poke champion, Varus, with Henrik “Froggen” Hansen on Anivia and Juan “Contractz” Garcia on an early game powerhouse, Olaf.
Cloud9 came out of draft with a team fight focused composition. They went AP Neeko in the top lane, Azir in the mid lane, and the Xayah/ Lux bot lane. They also gave Rek’Sai to Dennis “Svenskeren” Johnsen for some early aggression.
The game started out in Cloud9’s favor, with Svenskeren getting an early kill on Huantzer in the top lane. The Guardians did throw their own punches though, getting an early Drake and double kill off the ensuing fight thanks to some fancy moves by Olleh’s Tahm Kench.
Cloud9 then went on a killing spree, catching out Contractz in his own topside jungle and transitioning that into a Rift Herald. A minute later Cloud9 got three more kills off the Guardians after a Drake secure from Contractz.
Cloud9 finished the first 15 minutes of the game with a Mid tier one Tower after dropping the Herald and a Top tier one after another Svenskeren kill on Huantzer
Mid game was when the Guardians started to turn things on. They started with a fight around Drake that resulted in two kills and another Drake for the team. All off the back of a Froggen Anivia play.
Then at around 22 minutes into the game Eric “Licorice” Ritchie got off a huge teleport flank to win a team fight against the Guardians in the mid lane, killing Olleh and then running to Baron. This would end up being a poor decision as the Guardians contested and won the fight and Baron off of a poor ultimate from the enemy Azir.
After this the Guardians evened up the gold and towers while gaining vision control around Baron and the Cloud9 jungle. They transitioned that into another quick Baron take, killed two more Cloud9 members after they tried to engage on them after, and took down the Mid Inhibitor.
The Guardians had a quick reset, marched down top and after another Cloud9 teleport flank engage, won the fight and took the Nexus.
The Golden Guardians decided this game to play what they are good at, poke and safe siege. With the Anivia and Tahm Kench combination they seem invincible, and without it they seem lost. Cloud9 should have learned form Clutch Gaming the day before – ban Tahm kench. Olleh is too good on that champion.
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