Following a Day 2 victory over Evil Geniuses, CLG finished the first week of the LCS 2023 Spring Split with a perfect 2-0 record. If they manage to defeat C9, they will remain as the kings of the North American league, but can they do it? Let’s find out.
CLG have continued their early-season winning ways from last year, starting the LCS off with a 2-0 record. With no roster changes during the offseason, the homegrown squad has been on a tear, most recently defeating the Evil Geniuses in a grueling 44-minute battle. They were able to claw their way back from an early deficit thanks to the battles around the neutral objectives and hold out until the late-game champions arrived.
They appear to have a good understanding of the metagame at the moment, with scaling compositions being the dominant style. They ease into the mid-game and gradually increase the intensity of their objective fights. Due to the fact that they will be playing on Patch 13.1 for the second week, they will most likely propose the same strategy.
In contrast, C9 has annihilated 100T and GG in the opening week, capitalizing around the mid-game and snowballing into game-deciding teamfights to close out the games. C9 have won both games before the 33-minute mark, while CLG has yet to win a game before that mark. They focus on drafting mid-game peaks, with strong skirmishing team comps. Because of their unique abilities, the players are able to easily influence the game’s direction.
When these two teams face off to kick off week 2 of the LCS, C9 should be favored due to their capabilities when it comes to taking advantage of their leads, at least relative to CLG. The advantage lies with C9 barring any major mistakes. On the other hand, CLG will get a chance to make a comeback if C9 takes too long to seal the deal.
In this sense, the drafting phase is going to be a huge factor in this game. C9 may have trouble against CLG’s full late-game scaling if they don’t get the strong mid-game comp or snowball quickly enough.
There are always going to be some champions available due to the current meta not allowing you to ban everything. Be on the lookout to see if either team chooses Lucian or Varus, two strong early game bot lanes that appear to be underperforming in the LCS due to their negative win rates.
In the end, CLG are the underdogs in this series, but after repeatedly surprising the competition, this might be their chance to return to the top of the LCS rankings.
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