IMT vs CLG LCS 2021 Summer W7D3 Analysis

Gordy’s NA Review

I wanted to start doing these reviews to help NA improve as a region. LCS teams are missing certain fundamentals of the game, and the fundamentals that they do have could use a lot of work. In this review, I will discuss how CLG could have improved their draft, how they did a good job getting a lead in the early game, and how they could have improved their macro in order to close out the game.

Starting with draft, CLG first pick Kalista and Diana. Diana is a good first pick because she is an S tier jungler but I don’t really like Kalista as a blind pick in this meta. CLG also could have taken Gwen instead. IMT then pick Gwen Leona. They should have counter-picked bot lane here instead of blind picking a support so they could guarantee at least one counter-pick later on in the draft. Then, CLG pick Galio into Leona due to his synergy with Kalista and Diana. I think there were better support options here. CLG could have picked Braum which is a counter-pick to Leona and also has good synergy with Kalista, or they could have picked Alistar which is also good into Leona and has synergy with Kalista. Alistar would also provide additional setup for a good Diana ulti.

Looking at phase 2 of the draft, CLG blind Tristana mid and counter-pick Gangplank into what is likely either Gwen or Viego top. CLG should have picked Gangplank first since they were going to pick it anyway and it has a good match-up into either Gwen or Viego, and they should have counter-picked mid. Since they didn’t save counter-pick for mid, IMT get to pick Syndra which has a stable match-up into Tristana. That all being said, CLG do still end up with a draft that has win conditions, engage, and champion synergies.

Next, let’s look at how CLG did a good job getting a lead in the early game. At 6:00 game time, Kalista has been building a wave bot and CLG’s jungler and support cover while their mid laner shoves in the wave. CLG then dive bot with the help of their mid/jg duo. This is a good utilization of mid lane priority to make a side lane play; even if IMT’s jungler was nearby, CLG would still have numbers advantage since they brought both their jungler and mid laner to the play. This is also a good utilization of big wave macro; even if IMT back off and CLG don’t get the kill, CLG still deny multiple waves of minions and possibly get turret plating as well. Finally, this play is also good because CLG are playing to their win conditions. CLG want to play around their winning bot lane, and they can use their pushing mid laner to roam down and Gangplank ulti as needed.

Now, let’s see how CLG could have improved their macro in order to close out the game. At 27:19, dragon is spawning but IMT are there first so they have control over river. Instead of risking a 5v5 fight or a 50/50, CLG should just push mid with baron, snowballing the gold lead even further and possibly getting an inhib. They can get soul on the next dragon when they have a bigger gold lead from their baron push, and better vision setup from the inhib being down or just from being able to control more of the enemy jungle due to more towers being down.

At 32:26, CLG correctly push the mid wave to gain control over baron river but dragon is spawning in 30 seconds. They should just take dragon soul and use that to set up baron. Then, CLG start baron and IMT gets the steal. CLG should have looked to turn for the fight since they had complete control over vision in baron river and were up 9k gold; they should know that they have a sizable gold lead just based on kills and towers. In order to turn for the fight, CLG could have had Galio waiting on a flank.

Here are my biggest takeaways for CLG from this game. They should improve their drafting by picking better high priority picks, better counter-picks, and by looking for counter-picks in general. They should continue to do what they did to get a lead in this game. Finally, CLG should work on their macro decision-making; they would have been able to close out this game if they correctly made the decisions I discussed. On a final note, I thought CLG did a pretty good job with their objective setups and lane assignments.