ECC Post-Game Analysis: CLG.eu v. OW

CLG.eu has recently just returned from Korea after sweeping their group stage, coming into this match with strong momentum and a potential array of new strategies and playstyle variations learnt through their training, scrims and matches with Korean teams. They're also an experienced team known to do well against all manner of teams utilising a slow, steady playstyle resulting in secured late game victories.

oW is a new team sponsored by Ocelote, hence the name 'Ocelote World.' From my point of view they're relatively unknown and as such not particularly susceptible to targeted bans.

CLG.eu Bans:
- Vladimir
- Kassadin
- Irelia

oW Bans:
- Urgot
- Anivia
- Malphite

CLG bans targeted at ELOBUFF based data for oW (considering they are a new team). oW bans seemed to be based on OGN games (Wickd's Malphite, or perhaps Malphite in general, is a pain to deal with), general knowledge - Frogennivia op - as well as Urgot’s heavy disruption which is a concern for many top teams due to his incredibly strong engage and anti-adcarry oriented abilities.

CLG.eu Picks:
- Alistar - First Pick
- Karthus
- Leona
- Rumble
- Corki

oW Picks:
- Shen
- Nocturne
- Ahri
- Kennen
- Janna

- CLG.eu first pick's Alistar possibly in line with their Korean experience; Korean Alistar is first picked or banned. Alistar is an interesting jungle in that doesn't rely on items at all and is incredibly potent when it comes to snowballing lanes due to his amazing CC capacity (especially assuming you can 'wombo-qombo' AKA wq).

- oW responds with double globals, Nocturne and Shen. It's important to note that while Shen can scale into late game very well, providing tankiness, rather strong sustained damage, an incredible carry-protection and split-pushing potential, and one of the only abilities which forces opponents to attack him, Nocturne has comparatively less to offer in late game. Nocturne's strength lies in his early-mid game ganks wherein he can use his ultimate to bypass wards and utilise his unique 'darkness' effect to pressure his opposition.

He specialises in catching opponents off guard over LONG range and punishing mispositioning. As the game progresses into late game the possibility of catching enemies off guard becomes less likely due to team clumping and the objective focused nature of late game. This is not at all to say that his late game is 'bad' persay but rather that his playstyle is more focused towards the early and midgame.

- CLG responds with Karthus and Leona. These picks hint strongly at a kill lane bottom, as Leona's CC in conjunction with Karthus' ultimate provides a lot of kill security. These picks also secure CLG a strong late-game team fighting composition. Pairing Leona with Alistar allows for incredibly strong initiate and follow up CC which allows Karthus to keep opponents in his AoE Defile as well as consistently land Lay Waste's.

These picks have essentially sealed the 'compositional deal' unless either team opts for a half-half composition of early and late game champions. CLG.eu has lined up what seems to be a late game oriented composition, as Karthus excells at teamfighting and late game sustained damage and engage due to his Defile, Requiem, and Wall of Pain abilities. Karthus wall and aoe are also incredible push deterrents which enables CLG's favoured turtle strategies.

oW on the other hand has a composition which lends itself more towards mid game dominance with the engagement strength of Nocturne AND Shen which invites a more aggressive playstyle.

- oW compliments their previous picks and responds to CLG's with an Ahri and Kennen pick, which implies an AD Kennen simply because the other roles have been taken and any other character as either the AD or support would be a bit too 'meta-breaking' for their foray into the competitive scene. Ahri offers high mobility and provides a good initiator to be paired with Shen as Ahri has the capacity to move into a prime position with her ultimate, allowing Shen to use his own to arrive at her location and engage. She can also use this ultimate to join fights quickly along with Nocturne and Shen, reinforcing the notion that oW's composition is focused on punishing mispositioning and ambush-style engagements.

- CLG picks up Rumble due to his strength in the Jayce patch - Jatt comments that Rumble's Flamespitter is quite powerful in this patch - as well as Corki as their ad for a strong burst/all in combination at bot lane with Leona. Rumble also encourages a strong late game as in combination with Leona and Alistar's CC he should be quite capable of landing his ultimate and flame spitter across the majority of the opposition.

Corki is a very strong AD to partner with Leona due to his ability to burst with his Phosphorous Bomb, Gatling Gun, and Missile Barrage, and utilise his Valkrie to follow up. Another thing to take note of is his amazing synergy with Leona's Passive. Typically, a Leona will try to space out their Zenith Blade, Shield of Daybreak, Eclipse, and auto-attack sunlight effects so that the AD can proc the maximum damage.

However, Corki's Gatling Gun fires every half second not including his own auto attacks, meaning that Corki is near guaranteed to land every Sunlight proc even if Leona lands her stun straight after Zenith Blade and follows up with an Eclipse blast all in a quick burst.

-oW responds with Janna perhaps as an attempt to peel CLG off of her carries as well as attempt to disengage teamfights with her Monsoon.

Corki and Leona do golems, but aside from that it’s a typical start with no engagements or counterjungling. oW’s Nocturne grabs an early red following a smite-less blue as CLG’s bot lane make what seems to be a slight miscommunication wherein Leona loses over half her health after an e onto Janna without any assistance from Corki. Nocturne unsuccessfully ganks top,though this does of course add some pressure at top and hints that he may be focusing on top lane this game.

Bot lane is forced back after some heavy poke from Kennen and Janna with ignite onto Corki. This allows Kennen to take very slight cs lead. CLG’s bot lane is looking for plays to make, as is the jungle Alistar but neither are particularly successful. Nocturne and Shen manage to combo their cc allowing them to dive top and kill Rumble with no loses, Karthus attempts to finish Nocturne with his ultimate but Nocturne brushes it off easily with his spellshield which in turn reduces level 6 pressure on bot for the duration of Karthus’ cooldown.

At this point CLG has made a few misplays across the map, had oW been more aggressive they would have most likely been able to claim first blood on Leona at bot lane after what seemed to be a miscommunication between the support and AD on CLG's side. On the other hand oW could potentially have attempted to poke into CLG's bot lane a bit more due to the nature of their lane (Kennen + Janna Poke). Rumble's death at top wasn't particularly avoidable however Karthus' ultimate was either a rather desperate reaction or a miscommunication between Rumble and Karthus on whether Nocturne's shield was up.

Alistar makes for a very very risky build as he skips his gp5 and picks up an early boots of mobility and an oracles, though he keeps it as a pot in his inventory.

This play shows to have an interesting effect on the rest of the game, as the early oracles isn't used to simply compliment ganking - although I'm sure Alistar would have preferred to gank as well - but rather in conjunction with his boots of mobility Alistar manages to move across the map clearing wards and providing enough pressure to dissuade oW's needed aggression.

Shen, Ahri and Nocturne use their sheer strength to pull down Karthus, though the Shen ulti was arguably unnecessary. Realising this, Corki and Leona move in and manage to take down Janna and nearly finish Kennen in a rather clean engagement.

The Shen ultimate from oW seemed unnecessary and there didn't seem to be any real amount of coordination in their dive onto Karthus, it's important to be able to rotate tower-agro during dives but it seemed as though they expected to kill Karthus much faster as Nocturne dropped very low from tower damage.

CLG's bot lane simply makes a straightforward engage following the confrontation at mid and manages to take down Janna with relative ease and almost finish Kennen. oW should possibly have played this a little better as they seemed to hesistate before trying to escape and it would have been wise to be aware of the opening made by Shen's ultimate at mid. However, this kill is mostly a result of CLG out-playing rather than oW making bad plays.

oW attempts to 3v1 dive Rumble at top but Rumble manages to juke well and not only take down Nocturne but survive and nearly claims a kill on Ahri. CLG take’s advantage of the clumping at top and obtains a free dragon with mid bot and jungle taking it down.

Again, CLG's reaction in this situation is very quick and very clean, after seeing 3 top they immediately position towards dragon.
In terms of the dive at top, oW seems to be lacking coordination which is quite common in newer teams as synergies and understandings haven't been made.

Again, they fail to rotate the tower agro and Nocturne takes too much damage from Wickd as the other two find themselves unable to finish him off. This is a terrible utilisation of resources and time, by clumping 3 top they open up the rest of the map for CLG. In addition, Rumble wasn't particularly damaged before they dived which makes for a much more risky engagement which, in this situation, resulted in oW giving a kill rather than achieving one.

Wickd picks up something influenced by the Korean meta, Haunting Guise, aiming to abuse his high base damage and rushing early spell penetration. As it stands CLGis only in possession of a 500 gold lead and seems to be content with their late game oriented farming strategy.

Haunting Guise is an interesting pickup that is popular in the Korean scene. It is certainly a powerful early game item but with no late-game build options and no gp5 it is an unpopular choice to make in the NA and EU scenes, with most Rumble players opting for the hextech revolver for strong lane sustain. In this situation Rumble just seems to be aiming for stacked spell penetration to get 'ahead of the curb' in terms of the oppositions resistances.

This item also gives him some tankiness and allows him to push onto Shen even moreso than before. This aggressive item choice, as opposed to the standard hextech pickup means that Wickd intends on pushing as much pressure as possible onto Shen. This, together with Alistar's counter-pressure is restricting oW's compositional potential. Shen is under constant pressure from Rumble, and if he attempts to use his ultimate, it's likely that Rumble will all-in and either kill him or lower his health enough that his assistance is next to irrelevant, as well as take his turret.

Wickd times his aggression accordingly with bot lanes to maximise his pressure on Shen as well as bot lane, denying Shen the possibility of using his ultimate.

oW seems confused as to how to respond to this as all of their champions will be outscaled or matched late game. After some posturing around dragon, oW decides to give CLG the dragon and let Shen push down the top turret. oW clearly has a strong presence early on but Alistars oracles has nearly entirely dissuaded their arguably needed aggressive plays.

CLG simply pushes at mid as a group and manages to take the mid turret with next to no trouble, taking them to a 1.5k lead, a small lead in a general context, but considering CLG’s late game strength oW is most certainly slowly losing the game.

Compostionally CLG's advantage is already beginning to manifest. The game has matured into the team-fighting stage and the 1.5k gold lead is only an indicator rather than an actual measurement of the lead that CLG has established. Ahri has been unable to shut down Karthus, Kennen and Janna have been unable to successfully out-lane Leona and Corki, Rumble has managed to keep Shen's global pressure to a minimum, and whilst Nocturne has ganked more successfuly than Alistar, Alistar's oracles has seemingly had far more of an effect on the game.

Around 22 minutes into the game,Wickd pushes forwards for even more penetration by purhcasing an abbysal sceptre and Corki finishes his trinity force and the team groups to push down mid. Corki gets jumped at the inner mid turret but manages to Valkrie away and waste their focus as Rumble, Karthus and Alistar dart in and take out Kennen before escaping with low health, though not worryingly so as they have comparatively higher health in comparison to oW. Karthus triggers his ultimate as he leaves which forces oW to use both Janna and Shen’s ultimates.

Though this engagement begins due to a rather effective engagement by oW onto CLG's AD carry, oW is unable to secure the kill and in failing to do so they put themselves in an unfavorable position, despite being near-to and under the inner turret. The fact that CLG is able to engage in such a precarious location and not only pick up a kill but nearly 3 more clearly indicates that their lead is far more than the 1.5-2k gold lead. 

Both teams heal and oW heads towards an uncontested dragon as Wickd has to clear top, Wickd arrives as dragon is finished and Leona takes the opportunity to initiate on Ahri. Ahri is dropped down low but ulti’s away as Leona falls and the rest of CLG comes in to drop Shen, despite being unable to clear the rest of the team.

A slight misplay by CLG due to a somewhat missed Rumble ultimate during the fight and Wickd's late arrival from top lane, abandonning the farm and contesting dragon straight away would arguably have been a better decision as Wickd didn't utilise the gold from top in any 

After healing oW pushes in strongly onto mid outer turret before CLG can mobilise and puts a large amount of damage onto some of CLG's members, before chasing down mid lane. However, this turns out to be a bait by CLG and Leona easily lands her ultimate directly onto 3 oW players before Rumble engages with help from the rest of CLG picking up 4 kills and a free baron.

The advantage at this point in the game is still only 3k but composition wise, oW is certainly losing, especially following their failing at mid and baron. CLG is now in a primed position to push at oW considering their successful dive during their last push in addition to their stronger gold lead and baron buff advantage. Leona's initiate CC combined with Alistar's follow up gives them an incredible amount of time to unload damage onto the enemy team via Rumble, Karthus and Corki.

CLG simply pushes into mid and claims two kills easily before pushing at the inner turret and forcing the rest of oW out as they take the inhibitor turret, inhibitor and in a surprisingly aggressive play push in and take the nexus turrets as well as another kill before finishing the game.

CLG.EU utilised their strategy very effectively and showed a very good demonstration of playing to your composition.

oW did quite well for a new team but as mentioned numerous times their composition was under-utilised and they ended up playing CLG's game to CLG's advantage. CLG's surperior bot lane flourished without any hinderance from oW's jungler or top lane, and oW seemed to attempt to focus on top and mid, which proved inneffective due to their lack of coordination during dives and teamfights as well as a low amount of actual ganks, whether successful or not. Rumble proved to be a monster even in early and midgame, shutting down top and showing that CLG.eu has no issues dealing with Shen in competitive play.

All in all, a very interesting game, well played to both teams and best of luck in future matches.