Better known on Summoner’s Rift as Svenskeren, Dennis Johnsen’s jungle play has catapulted Cloud9 to the top of the LCS. Though they aren’t in first place, Cloud9 has certainly proven that they’re better than most of the competition. However, falling to EchoFox last Saturday was very frustrating for them as a team. With an important match against Optic Gaming the next day and spring playoffs closing in, C9 wasn’t ready to drop two matches in one weekend. Svenskeren decided to put the team on his back and surge over Optic to maintain their one-game lead on TSM.
If there’s anything to know about Svenskeren, it’s that he’s a top-tier jungler. This season he’s maintained that reputation. Svenskeren has helped keep this Cloud9 team in second place for six straight weeks now. His play on Nocturne has been specifically great, and he is undefeated on the champion through three games so far. In C9’s most recent victory over Optic Gaming, Svenskeren had a scoreline of 8/0/8 with a farm score of 231 while playing Nocturne.
C9 Svenskeren gives a smile for the camera. (Image Courtesy of LoL Esports Flickr)
He was able to utilize the incredible range of Paranoia, Nocturne’s ultimate ability, and applied exponential amounts of pressure to the jungle. Whenever the cool-down timer was up, he was positioned perfectly to assist his teammates. This resulted in multiple successful ganks, and a score of 6/0/1 at 20 minutes for Svenskeren. Though he was clearly the match MVP, he couldn’t help but humbly credit his teammates for the victory.
It’s safe to say that Nocturne could be Svenskeren’s best champion in the jungle. So far this split, he’s racked up a 7.4 K/D/A while playing the champion, the highest in the LCS. This strictly comes from his positioning and pathing on the map. He effectively punishes enemies for being overextended by using Paranoia from a distance. The massive range on this ability makes it much easier to catch an enemy off-guard, and with the darkness applied to the map, enemy teammates struggle to follow up. Also, Nocturne’s high DPS allows him to take camps and objectives much quicker than most other jungle champions. This usually results in a steady advantage in team objectives, like dragon or baron.
Though Svenskeren has an incredible resume on Nocturne this season, he’s had some struggles in the jungle as well. So far this split, his only success has been on champions that he’s played multiple times, such as Nocturne, Camille and Sejuani. When Svenskeren decides to change it up and play someone new, he often falls short. In matches where he’s picked a champion for the first time, Svenskeren has a record of 1-4 this split. This is shocking compared to his record of 10-0 on champions that he’s played multiple times.
Svenskeren shares some love with Cloud9 owner, Jack Etienne. (Image Courtesy of LoL Esports Flickr)
Since he prefers to play higher DPS champions in the jungle, Svenskeren tends to play more like a carry. This type of play proved effective against Optic this past weekend, much like it has for most of the season. However, it then becomes more necessary for him to get ahead of the enemy jungler. If he’s able to secure a few kills in the early game, Svenskeren often rides that lead until the very end of the game. With said lead, he’s able to roam around the map and put more pressure on the enemy jungler to counter-gank or fight.
As long as Svenskeren continues this level of play, Cloud9 will be feeling good heading into the spring playoffs. Now at 12-4, they’re one win away from clinching the second place spot and a first round bye week. They’ll face off against FlyQuest this Saturday, the only team besides TSM to take down Team Liquid. If a win can’t be secured then, they’ll get one more shot against Clutch Gaming the following day. Even if TSM wins out this coming weekend, Cloud9 will maintain the tiebreaker advantage as long as they don’t finish the week 0-2.
Featured Image Courtesy of Riot Games.
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