Battle of the Atlantic Preview: Los Angeles

Last week’s games were trickier to scout, what with offseason roster swaps and teams reforming, but the rosters for the last three matches have either made appearances in tournaments like IEM Season VIII Cologne or have remained largely consistent.





Counter Logic Gaming

Team ALTERNATE Zach "Nientonsoh" Malhas Kevin "kevn1n" Rubiszewski Marcel "dexter1" Feldkamp Alvar "Araneae" Martin Aleñar Austin "Link" Shin Adrian "Kerp" Wetekam Yiliang "Doublelift" Peng Jakub "Creaton" Grzegorzewski Zaqueri "Aphromoo" Black Alexander "Jree" Bergström



Teamwork:

Team ALTERNATE swept the summer split in Super Week before they hit their slump. They were known for fast gameplay with Areneae’s Lee Sin ping-ponging around the map. Creaton hardly ever died, and Kerp and Forellenlord were true dueling terrors. Then Creaton broke his hand, and even when he returned to the team, they never regained their form.

Since then, they’ve replaced Forellenlord with Kerp in the mid lane and acquired kev1n from SK Gaming, who gained a reputation as one of the best top laners in Europe, despite his team’s strings of losses. Roster swaps often take at least an early toll on the team’s success and synergy. Most recent examples of top laners switching to the mid lane have not been stellar in their early stages, as top lane is more of a “campaign mode” role, and the way the team functions together can easily suffer.

Of course, CLG has had a much harder run at communication lately. They just barely snuck into the North American LCS Summer Playoffs, citing their lack of a shotcaller as a core issue. Since then, fans haven’t seen much of an improvement. At IEM Cologne, one could only describe them as scattered while Trickz attempted to make plays, and Doublelift and Aphromoo, who often had the most successful laning phase, would swing up from bottom lane a little too late for the team to succeed against Fnatic. Dexter1 might be the one voice CLG needs to tie them all together, but even when ALTERNATE were at their shakiest, they seemed to work together better than CLG has lately, so he has a tall order to fill.



Aphromoo hooks xPeke at IEM Cologne to secure first blood. Fnatic still win the game.

Even if both teams manage to execute well, ALTERNATE’s fast paced gameplay should prove too much for CLG, who tend to place all their eggs in the Doublelift basket, regardless of their incarnation. Rarely, we have seen Nien step up to the plate on a carry toplaner, but generally CLG favors long games in which Doublelift is able to obtain a full build and outplay his opponents. Creaton and Jree have been a deadly combination in the past, with Creaton securing the highest KDA in EU LCS before he broke his hand, and Doublelift might not have an easy time ramping up.

Matchups:

Nien struggled at IEM Cologne, even in matches where he should have had the advantage. He played a hyper carry Nasus that failed to hyper carry, and fell behind in almost every single game, even against Turquality Blue. Kev1n, on the other hand, was always SK Gaming’s shining star. He managed to come out ahead in the European LCS, sometimes even against other European heavyweights like sOAZ and Wickd. I expect kev1n to meet little resistance in his first big series playing with Team ALTERNATE.

As I stated before, starting a new role rarely works out well for professional players at first. Recently, we have seen MakNooN struggle joining CJ Entus Frost, despite his reputation as an extremely skilled player. I expect Kerp to have some difficulty here against Link’s experience with the role, but since Link favors a very passive, farm-heavy playstyle, I don’t expect the outcome of this lane to be gamechanging.

In the bottom lane, Doublelift and Aphromoo are definitely the stars of their team, but Creaton and Jree have done more than their fair share of carrying in the LCS. Creaton’s performance has been shaky since he returned after his injury, almost as if his confidence got stuck in the door as well, and that’s something Doublelift has never seemed at a loss for. At the beginning of the LCS Summer Split, I would have easily given this matchup to Creaton and Jree, but in light of his recent performances, and Doublelift and Aphromoo making a definite effort to improve their play, this lane seems a lot more even.

dexter1 attempts to turn Araneae's gank.

With top lane being heavily favored for Team ALTERNATE, bottom lane expected to break even, and a slight advantage going to CLG mid, jungle will likely be the deciding factor here. In the LCS, dexter1 and Araneae had similar early game, gank-heavy styles. Both favor aggressive junglers. It’s difficult to compare ALTERNATE and Lemondogs because Lemondogs started to head into their prime when ALTERNATE began to struggle. At the Season Three World Championships, however, we saw dexter1 struggle to read his opponent’s jungle pathing, and Ararneae, though inconsistent in his performance, is not a very predictable jungler. I believe either jungler could take an advantage here, and it is down to whoever ganks first. Areneae, however, is much more familiar with the habits and behaviors of his teammates, and I expect this to play a big factor in his success.



Result: 2-1 Team ALTERNATE



Both teams have struggled to get back into form, though it is difficult to call CLG’s drop in performance a slump considering how long it has lasted. As a result, I believe it is much more likely for ALTERNATE to find its footing in this series. Though they might struggle with Kerp’s swap to the mid lane, the players on Team ALTERNATE are quite strong, and Araneae’s familiarity with his teammates as a jungler will be a huge boon in this matchup. I expect CLG to be able to potentially take one victory, but in the end fall to Team ALTERNATE.





XDG Gaming

Gambit Gaming Benny "Benny" Hung Evgeny "Darien" Mazaev Jake "Xmithie" Puchero Danil "Diamondprox" Reshetnikov Zachary "mandatorycloud"[/f] Hoschar Aleksei "Alex Ich" Ichetovkin Chistopher "Zuna" Buechter Evgeny "Genja" Andryushin Lyubomir "BloodWater" Spasov Edward "Edward" Abgaryan



Teamwork:

The last two series are somewhat meatier in that the teams have faced each other recently at the Season Three World Championships. In both cases, the results were close, yet ultimately Europe-favored, but a few things have changed since then.

On the side of XDG Gaming, infrastructural changes have occurred with new management. If there’s one thing the eSports community has learned, it’s that infrastructure can be extremely powerful. The changes the organization is making may up the competitiveness of the team in the long run, but I don’t see it having a huge impact this quickly.

Meanwhile, on the side of Gambit Gaming, Edward has returned to the support role, and the team looked stronger than ever at IEM Cologne when they managed to defeat Fnatic: the team that had been their kryptonite throughout the Season Three LCS.

In terms of the teams' styles, these two have a great deal of similarities. Both teams have a reputation for strong mid and jungle synergy, slightly unpredictable marksmen players, aggressive top laners, and play-making supports. The two teams share similar champion pools and prefer strong objective control compositions.

Gambit comes back after a baron steal and several kills against XDG Gaming.

Subtle differences arise in the pace at which the two teams like to take their games. XDG Gaming prefer to crush their opponents early and snowball a lead while Gambit has more of a reputation for slowly picking up adavantages and shutting out their competition. XDG Gaming has difficulty closing out a game, but this is an area in which Gambit excels. This is something we saw in the second game between these teams at the Season Three World Championship when XDG took a large advantage early, but Gambit managed to control a baron fight and take the lead. Because the new game changes make snowballs much harder to maintain and games trickier to close out, Gambit’s style might be favored.

Matchups:

As I already mentioned, Darien and Benny, or Sychosid, both tend to play aggressively in lane. They like to play bullying champions like Shen and Renekton with the goal of pulling the enemy jungler to their lane as much as possible. Since both Diamondprox and Xmithie are considered extremely important pieces of their team’s success, the matchup here could prove fundamental. The difference between Darien and Benny seems to be that Darien isn’t afraid to overextend or even die proxy-farming, and in a situation where both teams are somewhat closely matched, this could prove a problem rather than a boon for once. I can see Benny taking a slight advantage here.

In the middle lane, mandatorycloud was often hailed as the best mid of North America throughout Season Three. Some of his strengths were showcased in Group B at the World Championships where he stepped up against world class mid laners, including Alex Ich. I would say that mandatorycloud is slightly more reliant upon support from Xmithie in his lane than Alex Ich who can always fall back and farm safely or decide to roam instead. Mandatorycloud prefers to win his own lane, and Alex Ich’s adaptability won’t make it easy, so I give this matchup to him.

Both Edward and BloodWater have been called stars in their roles, though they are sometimes overshadowed by the strong mid laners and junglers that join them on their respective rosters. After patch 3.14, they might be able to shine and make more of the plays that have garnered them fame. Meanwhile, both Zuna and Genja have suffered a lot of criticism: Zuna for his team fight positioning and Genja for his unconventional champion builds. Edward claims that the difficulties that caused their bottom lane to suffer in the past have been fixed, and after their commanding performance at IEM Cologne, I find it difficult to disagree. The advantage here should go to Edward and Genja.

Darien and Benny on split-pushing top lane champions.

Diamondprox is often considered the strongest member of his team. Xmithie is sometimes overshadowed by mandatorycloud, but a strong jungler usually sits behind any mid laner who manages to gain a reputation. Both junglers tend to support their teams by invading and counterjungling. Early map control is always a goal in a game with Diamondprox or Xmithie, though Xmithie tends to favor more ganks to complement his team’s fast-paced games. In a game where most of the lane matchups should go in favor of Gambit, his ganks could prove instrumental.

Diamondprox’s overwhelming control has always been hard to argue against, however, and he managed to abuse Xmithie’s camps in both their games at Worlds. While Xmithie is a strong jungler with a similar style, Diamondprox’s execution remains crisp throughout the game. Xmithie might make the game go in XDG Gaming’s favor early, but Diamondprox will likely have a lot more presence later on, and that could mean a victory for Gambit.



The Result: 2-0 Gambit Gaming



Though I do think these teams are fairly evenly matched, Gambit Gaming won both their games against XDG Gaming at the Season Three World Championships, largely due to their superior team phase control. In order for XDG Gaming to have success, they need to have a flawless early game and close out. Since the latter is something XDG has historically struggled with, and the new patches have made it even more difficult, Gambit’s superior mid to late game map control should make it hard for XDG to take single map away from the Russians.





Cloud 9

Fnatic An "Balls" Le Paul "sOAZ" Boyer Will "Meteos" Hartman Lauri "Cyanide" Happonen Hai "Hai" Lam Enrique "xPeke" Cedeño Zachary "Sneaky" Scuderi Martin "Rekkles" Larsson Daerek "LemonNation" Hart Bora "YellOwStaR" Kim



​Teamwork:

If you’ve been paying attention to the way the standings in the Battle of the Atlantic work, you know that the first two matches this weekend will have no bearing on the winning region unless North America manages to win both of them, which I’ve predicted won’t happen. In that case, it all comes down to Cloud 9 vs Fnatic, and the result couldn’t come down to a more exciting best of three.

Not only are both teams first seeds for their regions, the last time they met, they proved that they’re nearly evenly matched with strengths and weaknesses that counter each other, and the games came down to the tiniest of early mistakes. With changes to game flow, neither team will be as punished for early misplays, and I expect close games.

While both teams are good at picking up early advantages and holding onto them to close out, they have very different styles. It’s almost a sin to say that a World Championship semifinalist has weak objective control, but I feel this is the case with Fnatic. In both their bracket sets at the World Championships, they sometimes struggled to pick fights around objectives and could not quite capitalize on successes by taking dragons, barons, or towers. Cloud 9, meanwhile, excel at objective control. Though they lost two of the their three games against Fnatic, they acquired 73% of dragons and every baron. Though Cyanide has gotten praise as an excellent smiter in Europe, Meteos’ level advantages were able to edge him away from big global prizes.

Cloud 9 steal baron from Fnatic, but lose several team members in the process.

Fnatic excels at crushing their solo lanes and extending pressure over the map. Though they may not take dragons and barons at every turn, they are very good at balancing a game when part of their team is on one side of the map, and sOAZ, xPeke, or both, are split-pushing. They force teams to react, and with the pickup of Rekkles, all their carries a very good duelists. Cloud 9, meanwhile, do better in brawls, picking as much long range initiation on their champions as possible and controlling fights.

That is, of course, not to say that Cloud 9 doesn’t rely upon having strong lanes. Because Meteos does so much farming, he needs his lanes to perform well and be self-sufficient. In the new League of Legends environment, my gut instinct says that Cloud 9 will perform better because junglers are more likely to die ganking early, and Cyanide won’t be able to punish Meteos' team for his lack of pressure. That said, since both teams rely upon a strong lane phase for their strategies to succeed, even more emphasis will be placed upon matches in this game.

Matchups:

If Fnatic struggles with dragon and baron control, how do they manage to be so successful? Both sOAZ and xPeke garnered reputations for being able to play almost any champion well and crush their lanes. At Worlds, Cloud 9’s victory came when they were able to both bully sOAZ out of lane with their duo lane and pressure from Meteos and take advantage of xPeke’s overconfidence to punish him in a counterpick scenario and pull out first blood.

That said, I feel like both of those circumstances falling into place was a bit of an anomaly. Cloud 9’s Balls is definitely one of the stronger top lanes in North America, and if there is a player across the pond who can take on sOAZ, it would be him. On the other hand, Cloud 9 forced sOAZ into 2v1 situations, and he came back more often than not, having a greater impact on the game than Balls did with the exception of Balls’ Rumble game. A single Rumble ban could easily put this matchup in sOAZ’s favor.

Hai finds first blood against xPeke.

xPeke’s overconfidence got the better of him at World’s against Hai, but Hai had to face his small champion pool. While enough time has passed for him to pick up a few more mid lane contenders, it’s hard to imagine him reaching xPeke’s level yet. I find it difficult to believe that Cloud 9 won’t ban Kassadin, but even when xPeke gave up first blood as Twisted Fate, he outfarmed Hai, and in the new League of Legends environment, a simple first blood won’t be enough to snowball the lane. Barring an extreme improvement on Hai’s part, I give this one to xPeke.

Bottom lane is more difficult to judge. I have seldom been impressed with YellOwStaR in the support role when he isn't playing Leona, but Rekkles has looked terrifyingly dominant since his debut. He managed to outshine Doublelift at IEM Cologne, and Doublelift has historically performed a bit better than Sneaky in terms of mechanics. LemonNation, on the other hand, is the stronger support player with the exception of a few cringe-worthy over-extensions the last time these two teams faced. I favor YellOwStaR and Rekkles in this lane, primarily because I feel like Rekkles will be able to do more for his team in the long run than provide the utility Sneaky is so famous for.

Sneaky and LemonNation get caught warding at level one.

As already stated, Meteos proved his objective control is very strong against Cyanide the last time they played. Cyanide’s lane support has traditionally been superior to Meteos’, but Meteos’ gank-efficiently-farm-more style has been buffed ever so slightly with recent patches. While Meteos’ smite steals may have amounted to very little at the World Championships, they might mean more with dragon gold value increasing later in the game. I give Meteos the slight edge here, even as I feel Cyanide was the stronger jungler during Season Three.



The Result: 2-1 Fnatic



While both teams are very even and both teams have aspects built into their strategies that counter the favored playstyle of the other, both rely heavily upon the success of laners in isolation. Meteos’ farming style might perform much better on the newer patches, but his laners will likely all fall to Fnatic’s without support. And should Cyanide choose to gank, junglers like Shook have been rewarded for their early pressure in this tournament, even while others die in the attempt. In addition, Cloud 9 thrives in five vs five situations later on, but Fnatic will make it difficult for Cloud 9 to find these opportunities and instead seek to pick off stragglers in skirmishes and duels. I expect close games, but I also expect a repeat of the World Championship quarterfinals.

The overall result of the Battle of the Atlantic, then, is a European victory. These predictions might seem a little harsh for North American fans, coming away with only one series success in the entire tournament, but if there's a chance for an upset, it will be in the final series, and one extra win in Cloud 9's favor will let the region take home the bragging rights.