Teams lack a miracle to take out CLG EU eSports Central

Azubu The Champions continues on Wednesday with Group D play. The group consists of two fan favorites from the international community, CLG NA and CLG EU, along with two Korean teams, LG-Incredible Miracle and MVP-Blue. Will both international teams be able to make it into the group stage or will the Korean teams smash the hopes and dreams of the international fans? Group D is sure to be exciting since the D in Group D stands for Group of Death.

MVP Blue vs. LG-Incredible Miracle

If you follow the Korean scene at all then you will know the name, MidKing. He is a dominant force in the middle lane and became a fan favorite when he played for the amateur MKZ team in the Spring season. Now he is with a very organized team of LG-Incredible Miracle that also includes Cornsalad and Lilac, two of the best players in the Korean scene.

At first glance, it looks as if MVP Blue picked a strong team that could do well in team fights. Graves and Janna in the bottom lane to out push IM's Ezreal and Leona. Karthus to do tons of AOE damage in a team fight. Singed to slow and gas people. While Skarner can pull people back into the fight with Impale. Seems like a really great team for group fights. Maybe it is, but not against LG-IM. It is hard to tell whether IM had the superior team or just the superior experience.

Paragon was able to position Ezreal flawlessly in team fights which allowed him to make up for a bad early game. Cornsalad and Ring were able to initiate every team fight to make sure MidKing and Paragon had the opportunity to throw down as much uninterrupted damage as possible; the result was MVP Blue players dying really quick. When you add on the crowd control capabilities of a Lilac's Leona, MVP Blue was locked down for a good 5 seconds in team fights. There was no answer from MVP Blue for the initiation of the 3 champions from LG-Incredible Miracle.

The game quickly got out of hand after 3 consecutive dragon fights went to Incredible Miracle, even after a really great start by the bottom lane of MVP Blue ( HanKun and VeryBerry). At the 20 minute mark, Ring was 8/0/7 after flawless ganks in the early game and fantastic team fights around dragon.

After a shaky start by MidKing, he comes back through amazing team fight skills to have a 10/4/9 score towards the end of the game and had almost complete items. The king of the middle lane was doing tons and tons of damage that MVP Blue did not have any answer for.

A notable item selection was the 3 Shurelya's Reverie to complete the "Catch the Singed" strategy. Whatever the strategy was, it worked because LG-IM was able to go 33 to 13 and take home the first game of Group D.

Ring was 9/0/19 and definitely takes the MVP for game 1. Can Incredible Miracle keep this up when they play the Counter Logic Gaming teams? I will not be surprised if they are just as dominant. The bigger question is, where does MVP Blue sit in these 4 teams? The new team seemed to be competent but couldn't keep up with the flawless execution of LG-IM. Will be fantastic to see how they stack up against the two international teams from Counter Logic Gaming.

CLG EU vs. CLG NA

What if I told you that there was a game where a team takes promote as a summoner spell and switches up the player roles on the team. Would you believe that could happen in the same game? Well in the epic clash between the two Counter Logic Gaming teams, that is exactly what CLG NA did. HotshotGG and Chauster switched roles and HotshotGG took Promote for the extra pushing power. What the spectator ended up watching was something that could shift the League of Legends competitive metagame into new directions, no matter the outcome.

The game starts off with HotshotGG using Consume on the big wraith and CLG NA stealing the red buff of Snoopeh. From there the lanes become straight up wonky. Ahri versus Kennen in the top lane, Malphite versus Caitlyn and sometimes Nunu in the middle lane, and Urgot/ Soraka versus Cassiopeia in the bottom lane. HotshotGG roamed around and helped Chauster counterjungle against Snoopeh.

The team and strategy that CLG NA was using was something that had to win early. The set up was not conducive to Nunu getting levels and as the game went on HotshotGG got farther and farther behind. The Promote summoner spell allowed CLG NA to constantly put on pushing pressure and they take down mid lane tower quickly. However, the teams went back to a sort of standard game after the 10 minute mark but it only lasted about 5 minutes. The five minutes might have been the killing blow though because it allowed CLG EU to collect themselves and they started to get in good ganks and pushed down towers to even the tower total and pull the gold lead in their favor.

The longer the game went, the more CLG EU got ahead. This game had little to do with gold and more to do with initiation. CLG NA had very little they could do to protect Doublelift (AKA all their damage) from a Malphite ultimate or a Maokai Twisted Advance. The only team fights that were really close were the ones where Doublelift was able to go untouched for most the fight; it happened once.

At one point, CLG NA was able to sneak a baron by having Chauster attack it inside the pit and the rest of the team attack it from their own jungle. Chauster was able to Safeguard away when EU arrived but the team was able to keep attacking and Chauster was able to Flash -> Smite the baron which only stalled the game, hardly made it even.

The game changer that kept CLG NA in this game was the Promote spell. Using the spell on a siege minion allowed the side lanes to push all the way to the inhibitors unless someone from CLG EU would recall to take care of it.

Eventually CLG EU was able to push up the middle lane and take down Doublelift to ensure the victory. The game was a treat to watch and went a long way in changing the way League of Legends can be played at the top level. I strongly encourage you to buy a pass on www.ognlol.com just to watch the VOD from this game, it will be worth it.

By the way, Froggen never died in the 50+ minute game.

MVP Blue vs. CLG EU

MVP Blue starts out strong; hanging with CLG for the first 10 minutes. However, it all goes downhill at the first dragon fight. CLG EU's team is much better at controlling the fight and Froggen and Yellowpete are able to lay down the damage to get a 4 for 2 fight. The dragon was not taken though. The teams meet again at dragon but the crowd control from Karthus, Nautilus, and Leona prove to be too much to handle as the Europeans get an ace and a dragon kill. At this point, the game is 19 minutes in and CLG EU have a 6k gold lead.

Yellowpete becomes a bigger and more ferocious beast as the game goes on. The European AD player ends up going 9/1/13 in the game as he was able to get items really quick and his positioning was impeccable; everything a team can ask for from their AD carry.

There was a great moment when NOFE was able to kick Froggen out of a Requiem but it did not end up how he would have liked as Yellowpete was able to clean up the kills.

At the 28th minute, CLG EU had a 10k gold lead and was ahead 11 kills. There was no coming back for MVP Blue and CLG EU pushed into the base, got another ace after a Karthus ultimate was able to kill Graves on the fountain for the ace.

Check out these stats:

Froggen Yellowpete Krepo

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5/1/16 9/1/13 2/1/20

CLG EU vs. LG-Incredible Miracle

The battle for first place was going to be epic. CLG EU against the strong Korean force of LG-Incredible Miracle meant different things for both teams. A win for CLG EU meant they could go to ECC Poland without fear of having to forfeit a tiebreaker match. A win for LG-IM meant that they would almost assuredly get out of the group. A loss for either team would put them on edge.

Once again, CLG EU has the better AOE cc and damage team composition while their opponent went for a more assassination type composition. The battle in the middle lane between two of the best AP players in the whole world proved to be exactly what everyone expected. MidKing was able to out duel the amazing Defiles and Lay Wastes that Froggen was throwing at him. The amazing jukes and dodges that MidKing was able to execute while killing Froggen left spectators everywhere with their jaws on the floor. Unfortunately the big plays from MidKing were not able to transfer over into every other lane.

The global presence of Froggen's Requiem allowed the side lanes to be more aggressive. The bottom lane duo of Yellowpete and Krepo was able to be so aggressive that they were able to push the IM duo out of lane; giving Corki a sizeable creep score lead. The ganks from Snoopeh also brought a lot of pressure.

However, the team fights are where the game was won for CLG EU. CLG EU was able to increase their leads as the game got out of the laning phase and into the team fight phase. The crowd control from Nautilus and Malphite allowed CLG EU to get the best initiations and positioning for their carries to destroy the Korean team. Corki had much more damage in the team fights than Ezreal did for Incredible Miracle.

There was one huge showcase of skill in this game as Froggen was caught in the jungle of LG-IM but was saved by an Unstoppable Force from Wickd. However, Paragon sent a Trueshot Barrage towards the top lane from the bottom lane that was able to pick off Froggen as he was recalling.

CLG EU attempts to take a game-clinching baron but Ring was able to steal it and use his ultimate, Paranoia, to escape. Unfortunately for Incredible Miracle, CLG EU turns right onto them and brings them and their baron buff down with an ace. The European team marches up the middle ramp and takes the game.

Group D Standings

Team CLG EU LG-IM CLG NA MVP Blue

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Wins 3 1 0 0

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Losses 0 1 1 2

2nd place in this group will be an intense battle between Counter Logic Gaming NA and LG-Incredible Miracle on Friday. MVP Blue is definitely out of the running for top 8 but that doesn't mean they will lay down for CLG NA on Friday. Expect to see more big plays in two days as the North American hopefuls are the final chance for a North American team to get into the round of 8 but they need to win two straight games to get there. Can bigfatlp match up against MidKing? Can the bottom lane duo of CLG handle Lilac and Paragon of Incredible Miracle? We don't know yet but we will find out as Group D concludes on Friday.

Group D - Day 2
Date: 7/27/2012
Time: 13:00 CET / 7:00 AM EST / 3:00 AM PST
Countdown: http://tmdwn.com/1rkc
Stream: www.ognlol.com or free stream - www.twitch.tv/ognlol

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