Do you believe in the Golden Age of CLG? It's been a stellar season for the newly put together CLG squad, but it could all come crumbling down once again in the postseason against a Team Liquid squad that is hoping no time is like the present to live up to their full potential.

Top Lane: ZionSpartan (CLG) vs. Quas (TL)

One of the biggest pickups in the offseason was ZionSpartan's move from Diginitas over to rival Counter Logic Gaming. His tenure on CLG didn't start as he would have hoped, having to sit out the first week due to a poaching punishment handed down by Riot, but he's been a rock for the team ever since. He's played nine champions in his 17 games, rotating from tanks to AP damage dealers to heavy carry-oriented champions.

His opponent, Quas, is even more diverse when it comes to his champion pool. In the 19 games he played this season, the Venezuelan top-laner played thirteen different champions. Need him to play a sturdy tank? He can do that. Oh hey, need him to play Hecarim or Kennen and be a primary engage? Awesome. Hell, why not let him play Fizz while you're at it.

The biggest difference between these two players has been consistency. Zion has continued his high-level of play across the entire regular season, but Quas has had some of the best games for a top-laner this season and followed it up with some of the worst. The question for Quas is if his style of play can mesh well enough with Piglet's hard carrying style in the AD Carry role to lead Liquid into the final four.

Contested Picks: Hecarim, Maokai

With how wide each player's champion pool is and the 5.6 patch new for everyone, it wouldn't really be surprising to see out of the box picks from either of these top-laner. Still, keep your eye out for Maokai to still be a hulking magic tree that never dies, and Hecarim was played by both players in the final week of the season to mix results.

Advantage: CLG

When Quas is good, he's great. When Quas isn't great, then we see what happened to him and the rest of Liquid that needed a tiebreak win over Team 8 to even make the playoffs. The two player's ceilings are at a similar level, but Zion has consistently been able to perform this season.

Jungle: Xmithie (CLG) vs. IWillDominate (TL)

I will be the first to say that I doubted this new 'Golden Age' of CLG and in particular Xmithie when he joined the squad. Sure, he was great when Vulcun was actually good and didn't turn into some super pretentious team name, but the time had passed and the generations had changed. While other LCS teams were adding big name Korean players and padding their line-ups with upcoming stars, CLG picked the Vulcun and then Complexity player to play as their starting jungle.

I'll be happy to admit that picking up Xmithie has was a great move for CLG and he's slotted in perfectly with the all-North American team. He has settled in well as the designated engage-and-punch-things guy on the squad, playing a lot of Vi and Jarvan on the season. Needless to say, he has punched many faces this season and helped CLG get out to early leads.

Dominate, similar to Quas, has been the MVP of his team at times and has also had his fair share of games he wish he could have back. He didn't bring out his Sejuani until the final two games of the season, but those were the two most important of Liquid's season; Dominate, well, dominated Dignitas to get into the playoff tie-breaker game and then followed it up with an 18 assists game to get into this playoff match-up.

Contested Picks: Rek'sai, Sejuani

Honestly, I kinda just want to see Xmithie continue to pick Vi and punch mid-laners in the face repeatedly during the early-game.

Advantage: CLG

Pretty much copy/paste what I said for Zion vs. Quas. Dominate can definitely be one of the best junglers in NA and has shown his talent on several occasions, yet Xmithie has been a bit more stable when it comes to the role he fills for the team.

Mid: Link (CLG) vs. Fenix (TL)

Fenix has had an up-and-down first season in North America. He's at times been singled out as Team Liquid's 'weak link,' as was seen as the position that most likely needed to be changed for Piglet to succeed on the team. Although his stats aren't amazing for a mid-laner (only 2.96 KDA with 66 kills), he has been a big game performer. When TL needed a win and was close to throwing a massive lead against TSM, Fenix was the one who pulled off the clutch engage with his Lissandra at the Baron pit to win the game.

Link was the opposite of Fenix's story. He didn't come into the season with much hype, as a large majority of the fans were wondering why he was able to keep his starting spot after a sub-par previous season. CLG said they would stick with Link and have gotten back a rejuvenated performance in return for their faith. Link ranks second in kills when it comes to starting mid-laners, only trailing TSM's Bjergsen, and is fourth overall during the regular season.

Contested Picks: Lissandra, Ahri

Lissandra is not a pick you want to give to Fenix. It has been his best champion all season long, undefeated on the champion with a record of 3-0.

Advantage: CLG

Fenix falls in with the mantra I've had for TL so far: he comes up big at times, but then he has games where he falls on his face. Link has had a better season in almost every statistical category, so I have to side with CLG for the third straight position.

AD Carry: Doubelift (CLG) vs. Piglet (TL)

If I was writing this article back in 2013, this would be a no-brainer. Piglet was my unsung MVP through the entirety of Season 3, always picking up the slack for the world champion SK Telecom T1 team when the rest of the team, even their ace Faker, couldn't get the job done. No matter if SKT was up 10k gold or down 10k gold, Piglet never stopped playing. His mechanics and his ability to outright beat players who had one or two completed items over him was jaw-dropping, using champions like Vayne to their utmost potential.

This season, sadly, is not in 2013 and this isn't prime-SKT where Piglet had the luxury of speaking the same language as his support and having a guy named Faker be the main carry. His overall KDA (3.70) isn't bad considering his 5-8 overall record with the team, but Piglet wants the role as the star player of the team and will need to be that player for Liquid to advance. The talk of keeping Keith or Piglet has come to an end; TL decided to stick with Piglet through the hard times, found a way into the playoffs and are now going to see where this current lineup can take them.

Doublelift has been Doubelift. Piglet's falters really make you appreciate how Doubelift, although having his own troubles in the past, has continued to be one of the better ADC players in all of North America. Alongside Aphromoo, their bottom lane has to be considered one of the best partnerships in Western League of Legends, and he's actually played more reserved with more of a team-focus this time around. Instead of racking up the kills and topping that leader board, Doubelift leads all ADC starters in assists this season with 109.

Contested Picks: Kalista, Vayne

Hyper carries are the name of the game for these two. I'm not saying we're going to see Vayne, but it wouldn't surprise me to see either of these two players bust out their signature champion to try and outdo the other. Doubelift tried to bring her out in the tiebreak game against Cloud 9 to no avail, while Piglet has had more success with a 2-1 record.

Advantage: CLG

Can we move on before I change my mind? I'm starting to watch Piglet highlights from 2013 and starting to forget the disjointed play he's had with his teammates this season.

Damn, his Vayne was so good!



WAIT, IS IT TOO LATE TO CHANGE MY MIND!?

Support: Aphromoo (CLG) vs. Xpecial (TL)

With two elite players at their position, we come down to the support position for our final head-to-head match-up.

It's been a chaotic year for Xpecial, splitting time with Keith and then Piglet and then Keith again and then finally sticking with Piglet after a roller coaster of emotions. As you'd expect for someone who had to juggle different starting AD carry partners — even at Xpecial's caliber — it was difficult. The former all-star support looked more comfortable with Keith, but that shouldn't be surprising seeing as their isn't a language barrier between the two players and Keith needed less focus in their team compositions.

Aphromoo had a great regular season, playing a wide-range of champions that focused primarily on his stellar play-making abilities, but also fitting in disengage with Janna or Nami if needed. All five players on CLG need to be credited for grabbing them a top three spot in the regular season, yet you'd have to say Aphromoo is the glue and backbone that keeps the team together.

Contested Picks: Janna

While Janna has been a big pick for the two supports this season, I hope that we see Aphromoo bring out his Blitzcrank for another go-around alongside Doublelift's Kalista.

Advantage: CLG

If there wasn't the whole language barrier and having to go back-and-forth all season long with two AD's, I think this is pretty much a deadlock tie. Both players are great, and you can't discredit Xpecial's history of big games and series, but Aphromoo and Doublelift come into this series at a level that X-Pig (Xpigcial? Piglecial?) haven't reached yet.

The Verdict:

This series has driven me insane. My heart is telling me to side with Liquid, putting my faith in that Piglet and Xpecial can draw on their past successes and finally connect as the top bottom lane pairing like many thought they would be. I don't think it's a question if Piglet is still a good player, but if he and the rest of his Liquid teammates can gel together well enough to take down an united CLG core of five.

Almost every lane for Liquid can be described the same: oh yeah, they can play really well and crush face, but then they can also lose to bottom level teams and fall flat. The potential that Liquid have with this team is huge and there is a reason why people hyped them up as a favorite before the season started. Their lineup on paper is great and hinged on if Fenix and Piglet could transition fully into a new ecosystem and culture in North America.

The answer has been a resounding kinda-not-really. Fenix and Piglet, like the rest of TL, have had marquee games you can slap on a highlight package and make people think they're a Top 2 team in NA, but that's missing out on the games where they were ineffective or downright dismantled.

The narrative will most likely be unfair for whichever team loses. If Liquid loses, then there will be outcries for Keith and how they should have stuck with him all along. It will be more drama heading into the off-season and people wondering if they need to change more than just the AD carry to have a chance at making the 2015 Worlds.

If CLG loses, then people are going to call them choke artists again. While this could be fair if Liquid don't play well and CLG simply play well below their average way of playing, there is a good chance that Liquid come into this series prepared to play as a team and look better than they have all season with Piglet in the lineup. If that happens and CLG loses to the TL team we've been waiting to see all season, it'll be less CLG choking and more TL finally becoming who we thought they were.

The countless CLG follies in the postseason, Piglet and Xpecial's pedigrees and the alluring fourth place for Liquid all make me want to choose TL. They were the team I had ranked highly coming into the season while I thought CLG would be the team scratching their way into the playoffs.

But then I realize I picked CLG in every single position off their better all-around regular season and go back to Liquid continually trying to force a puzzle piece (Piglet) into a puzzle it wasn't designed for.

Prediction: CLG 3 - 1 Team Liquid

Tyler "Fionn" Erzberger is a staff writer for The Score eSports, and he will be covering both the EU and NA LCS Playoffs. He knows all the stats say that CLG should win but those 2013 Piglet highlight videos sure make it hard. You can follow and tell him your predictions on Twitter.