Coast vs CLG: Why Coast is 3-0

Most would agree that Coast has not looked very strong this split thus far, and their score reflects it, only Velocity is below them. However, against one of the oldest teams in competetive League of Legends, CLG, Coast has managed to pull ahead. In the Spring Split, the two teams went 2-2, but Coast has been handing them a new one this split.

Roster Changes and team comps

Now, back in the spring split, CLG loved their "Protect the Doublelift" composition, that saw Shen toplane and Lux or Orianna midlane, and the goal was to provide peel and sheilds for doublelift, and it worked decently, for a while at least. However, with the restructuring of the team before the summer split, we saw CLG not rely soley on doublelift to carry the games, and went away from the 1.5 threat (ADC and, to a lesser extent, mid) teams to a 2 or 3 threat. Nien began picking up more damage oriented top lanes, such as Irelia, Jarvan, and Elise, while Link went from lots of utility based mid laners (Lux/Orianna) to more damage based champions. This was an entirely different CLG that saw pressure from all over the team, and didn't soley rely on Doublelift soaking up all of the side lane farm, but rather spreading the love.

However, while this has been true for most of the games this split, against Coast, we see Nien playing super tanky initiators in two of the games, and Link playing Orianna in two of the games, almost like they defaulted on their multiple threat strategy to comfort picks and strategies, and in every game Coast has played dive heavy champions like Zed and Shen.

Game 1: 6/13, Patch 3.7

For most of the game, up until the last few minutes, CLG actually had the edge. They managed First Blood, got the first 2 Barons, and took Coast's mid Inhibitor, but never got more then a 5k gold lead and for various reasons, never even pushed the Nexus turrets. Now, CLG is running a two threat team comp, with all of the damage coming from Karthus and Ezreal, while Coast is running 3, with Zed, Orianna, and Caitlyn, and even Elise picked up some AP. In the final teamfight of the game, we see why this ended up in CLG losing. 

The third baron of the game, CLG started it, taking advantage of Caitlyn back at base to pick up her GA and push off the super minions. However, at Baron, Jintae managed to catch Link in a Shockwave and just straight up killed him, making it a 4v4, but without Karthus, Shiphtur's Zed immediately dove onto Ezreal, killing him in exchange for Zed's GA, and then suddenly, CLG had no damage because Ezreal and Karthus were dead. Caitlyn arrived, and Coast picked up baron, healed, and pushed to end the game. So we see that Coast manages to win an incredibly close game after a great teamfight by picking off the only sources of damage on the enemy team.

Game 2: 7/04 Patch 3.8

Unlike last game, Game 2 was not back and forth,  and more about picks and bans. We see that CLG has reverted back to their favorite style of play, but instead of a tanky top lane like Malphite or Shen, they opted for the Jayce, which gives CLG lots of damage if they can get to the late game, and they will have two of the strongest late game ranged ADs in the game. Coast on the other hand, has a very in your face team comp that you will not be able to outskirmish or get picks on, it was clear CLG was going for the late game teamfights.

The game actually did get about 40 minutes in, but by that point Coast had a 10k gold lead and no one on CLG was able to reach even close to their 6 item builds which would have let them win. Coast was just able to dive relentlessly with their superior mid game team composition that let them win the game quite handedly, and their dive comp made sure Nien and Doublelift had no breathing room.

Game 3: 8/1 

This was yesterday! 

So similar to the second game, we see that Coast has a team that is good at diving with Shen, Elise, and Ahri, but a strong backline with the Twitch and Nami, while CLG has a questionable teamcomp with not much upfront damage, but certainly a very tanky team. CLG's teamcomp was very reminscent of Curse's wombo combo team last week, with the Zac, J4, Orianna, Twitch Nami that they ran in two games last week. However, instead of the hypercarry AOE AD that Curse ran, CLG went Ezreal, which has much less damage, and can't follow up to the wombo combo like a Twitch Spray and Pray can.

This game though, we saw the downfall of CLG, they just chose to farm all game rather than push any objectives, CLG never got a dragon, and while they actually did get 2 turrets, Coast got 11, and they're complete control of the map, along with the Shen splitpush gave them two clean barons and a huge gold advantage. As the game got later, Doublelift did finally manage to get enough damage to hurt Shen and Elise, but Jarvan and Zac just couldn't dive onto Coast's backline without immediately dying, giving Coast the win. 

Conclusion:

Counter Logic Gaming just does not play the style that has best suited them in the split so far when playing against Coast. Defaulting onto comfort picks and not being able to sutain Coast's dive comps has given Coast the 3-0 so far this split, we'll see what happens next week for the last game between these two teams.