“However, the one time that was good was when he visited us and made us play sivir comp and that won us like the first 3-4 weeks of lcs. So I guess props to him for that lol. But I mean it’s a f****g sivir comp. You group up and you win right?”

-Link, statement upon leaving Counter Logic Gaming



Sivir is an unusual champion in a strange meta for AD carries. The current meta has shifted into arguably the nadir of AD carry strength, with AD carries being more focused on just DPS more than ever before. AD carries who are the best in the world still remain as flashy carries, but the role has gradually shifted into a more utility-based role than ever before, with the ability to 1v5 the enemy being greatly reduced. In this meta, a champion such as Sivir shines brightly. Sivir has the ability to fit into almost any composition with her powerful AOE speed burst that she has as an ultimate, and her waveclear is among the best for all AD carries.



However, a common interpretation seems to be that Sivir doesn’t carry games. This seems to be particularly prevalent in the Western regions, where hard carrying as Sivir rarely happens. However, in the Eastern scenes there have been numerous times where a Sivir has absolutely taken over a game. Rather than allowing her team to carry, the best AD carries have shown an ability to lead their team to victory on the champion, displaying an incredible skill ceiling with the champion. This article will look at some of the great (and not so great) Sivir games that have been played across the world, and the different ways that Sivir has been played across them. It isn’t strange that following AD carries are among the best and most celebrated AD carries in the world, and a trend seems to show that good AD carries tend to do well on Sivir. Throughout our journey across the world we will observe different styles of Sivir play, many of which are far more complicated than “grouping up and winning”.

Picking Apart the Enemy: SKT T1 Bang

SKT T1 vs GE Tigers Spring RR Week 12 Game 1

SKT T1, the best team in Korea and potentially the best team in the world, is not known for overly relying on Sivir. In their 44 games in Champions Summer, they only played Sivir three times, and Bang has a 2-1 record with her. The reason for this is because of Bang’s preference of Corki and Kalista, boasting lifetime records of 23-2 and 10-0 on the two champions respectively. Because SKT is such a stacked team with massive solo lane threats, Bang rarely has to deal with more than one ban, and usually got to pick from his two favored champions. In recent days he has favored Vayne over Sivir, accumulating an 8-1 record in Summer on the champion.



Despite this, Bang is a very formidable Sivir player who boasts the ability to hard carry with a tricky composition that SKT only really has ever played frequently; the Sivir-Lulu pick composition. First debuting against the GE Tigers in game 1 of their second Round Robin match in Week 12, Bang showed a new and innovative way to play Sivir in a game where he had to be the hard carry for the team.



Facing up against the heavily lane-dominant matchup of Graves/Kennen, Bang would initially play more cautiously so to avoid burning valuable Summoner Spells. However, T0M, on Nunu, would suddenly make a bold move towards Dragon, attempting to solo it. Pray and Gorilla sauntered over towards the pit to shoo T0M off. However, Bang and Wolf caught Pray and Gorilla in the river, and aggressively outtraded to blow Pray’s Heal. Following this, Bang would be able to trade aggressively with her Boomerang Blade and Ricochet, and actually force the normally lane-dominant Graves back into his own turret, where he backed due to Bang’s better trading with Spellshield negating most of the poke from Buckshot.



At around 12:30, T0M gets caught out trying to clear a pink ward in GE’s jungle. Pray and Gorilla would again rotate up the river to assist with the kill. Unfortunately for Pray, Bang would use his ultimate to get a quick pick onto Pray, killing him before he could contribute much of anything. This would only be the first pick for Sivir, and many would follow afterwards. At 16:00 the first major teamfight would occur on an out-of-position GE, and aided with the engage from Bang’s ultimate, SKT aced GE, Bang getting a triple kill in the process.







Due to Bang being so far ahead, he would rotate to top lane to get a tower kill. Despite Pray and Gorilla being sent to defend, they couldn’t deal with Bang’s superior trading, and were forced off of the outer turret quite easily, forcing Lee to come assist them. Pray was forced to stay in top lane while SKT would take the third dragon, getting them closer to the fifth stack.



Using their superior vision control, SKT would attempt a pick on Smeb and Lee in the top lane. Despite not even having the Sivir ultimate for the speed boost, However, due both Whimsy and Blood Boil onto Bang, they got the pick onto Lee, leading to SKT taking a Baron buff at only 25 minutes. Shortly after, they would find an out of position Kuro, and using their superior engage, would dive two turrets for four kills, losing zero members in the process.







SKT’s advantage led to another uncontested Dragon and more turret kills in the process. However, they couldn’t siege very easily due to Sivir’s limited range, and could not immediately close the game. It didn’t matter after SKT would get a perfect ace, once again from Bang engaging with his ultimate. SKT would take down GE with their aggressive pick composition in only 32 minutes. Bang finished with a dominant score of 9/0/6, involved in 15 of SKT’s 16 kills.



If there was one thing that Bang showed during this series, it was how to snowball an advantage as Sivir. Using Sivir’s ultimate aggressively to force pick after pick onto an out-of-position GE Tigers, Bang would get so far ahead that he was virtually unkillable by the Tigers. When Bang needed to carry on Sivir, he delivered, giving SKT the first game in their eventual 2-0 victory. Bang is a good enough AD carry that he can hard carry on Sivir, even if Sivir is not one of his preferred champions.



Bang goes into the World Championship on one of the best teams in the world, if not the best. The team has been nearly unstoppable in their quest for their fourth LCK title, only dropping 6 of their 44 games. After destroying longtime rivals KT Rolster in the Summer Finals in a clean 3-0, they've looked nigh unstoppable. It remains a matter of time to see whether they will be the first team to win a second World Championship.

The Human Battering Ram: OMG Uzi

OMG vs iG Summer RR Week 4 Game 1

When two-time Worlds Finalist and star AD carry Uzi initially joined OMG, the team received no end of hype. With an upgrade for what was their weakest position, OMG looked extremely dangerous and a major contender for being a top team worldwide, with some of the best players for four of their five positions.



Six months later, OMG was reeling after a disappointing Spring Split. Benching former mainstays Gogoing and Loveling for xiyang and juejue, respectively, OMG switched to a team whose focus was all on Uzi. During the spring, the team had somewhat defaulted to this strategy, but with their roster overhaul in summer the team would go all-in on their talented two-time Worlds Finalist AD carry.



Unfortunately for OMG, results did not markedly improve. Uzi defaulted to a specific champion and has hard carried with his team’s resources on the back. That champion, of course, happens to be Sivir. Sivir seems like a strange choice for a world class AD carry to default to carrying on, rather than say a Vayne. But, when the chips are down, Uzi relied on his terrifying Sivir to win OMG games by providing his teammates with clear opportunities to go in with him.



Against Invictus Gaming in Week 4, a team that seemed to be falling off despite for some time looking like the second or third best team in China, OMG picked Sivir both times. They won in a decisive 2-0, but the first victory is particularly notable for the way that OMG used Uzi to put pressure on every lane. The effect was akin to a battering ram, with iG’s towers falling one by one to the one man siege tank of Uzi. The game ended rapidly due to Uzi’s gigantic advantage and ability to 1v1 everyone on iG, with a quick surrender after merely 21 minutes.



All of this started from a very strong level 1 advantage that OMG created for themselves over iG. A deep 5 man invade into iG’s red by the 5 members of OMG led to a bunch of information received by the team about iG’s lanes. As a result, OMG knew when Zzitai recalled after faking to top side and that iG’s bot lane was coming to the top lane, where Uzi and Amazing already were waiting. Uzi, with the advantageous 2v2 lane matchup of Sivir/Annie into Vayne/Thresh, took advantage of this by freezing the minion wave towards his side to zone Kid from getting valuable experience. This caused Uzi to hit level 2 much faster than Kid could, and he and Amazing would further deny Kid's already vulnerable Vayne from being able to do anything in the laning phase. The wave freezing against him, Kid was forced to hug his turret, unable to do anything while Uzi threw out Boomerang Blades to force him out of lane.



Uzi would continue to press this advantage for a majority of the laning phase, eclipsing Kid’s creep score by more than 20 by the eight minute mark. Kid was wounded from repeated poke following stuns from Annie and Uzi’s Boomerang Blade. Being forced under his own turret at low health, and with Uzi and Amazing hitting 6 early, Amazing dropped a flash Tibbers that led to Uzi getting the kill on Kid. Seeing an opportunity immediately after, Uzi himself ulted and with the aid of Juejue's timely gank, caught up to Kitties who was fleeing to safety. Uzi ended up with a double kill and a gigantic advantage over Kid. He finished off the low health turret and recalled, 30 cs and two kills ahead of Vayne.







From here, Uzi would take control of the rest of the game. Kid was forced to freeze top lane to get some valuable cs to catch up to Uzi, and OMG would heavily capitalize on this opportunity.. Rotating to bottom lane, OMG would get a free dragon and would immediately dive iG again, picking off Kitties even after he flashed. They would turn on the bottom outer turret, taking that down as well. After Rookie’s Riven recalled from the mid lane, OMG would shift their attention onto that turret too. In the span of 4 minutes, OMG would get 3 turrets and Uzi had 3 kills, all while Kid was farming in the top lane, unable to do anything to stop them.



Uzi would go to bottom lane to soak up some empty lane farm. Zzitai and KaKAO already lay in wait for him, but Uzi would initiate onto Zzitai’s Ryze and spellshield the snare perfectly, trading 2 for one with only Amazing dying. Uzi would continue his structure demolition, using Sivir’s waveclear to push up to the bottom tier 2 turret by around 15 minutes, another turret falling in the wake of Uzi’s rampage. Yet another ultimate by Uzi led to a successful dive killing Zzitai in mid lane, which gave OMG’s battering ram the chance to topple two more turrets, exposing the middle inhibitor in only 17 minutes.



An overextension from Rookie gave Uzi his fifth kill, and at this point OMG was unstoppable. Boasting a 6k gold lead in only 18 minutes, OMG neutralized the lategame carry potential of Ryze and Vayne, leaving iG hapless while they did whatever they wanted on the map. A final teamfight at 20 minutes led to iG’s surrender after OMG took down the middle inhibitor. In 21 minutes, Uzi had taken down 7 turrets, an inhibitor, and was involved in nine of OMG’s ten kills.



Uzi can carry with Sivir because it allows his team to make aggressive moves with him whenever Uzi decides to ult. Also, Uzi’s objective pressure when using Sivir is incomparable to any other champion he has used this season. By using Sivir as a battering ram, Uzi collects free global gold for his team, which allows them to be more powerful than their opponent in teamfights. Although this game was one-sided, it really showcases OMG’s use of Sivir to her maximum potential.



Unfortunately for Uzi and OMG, it seems that their playbook stopped after Sivir. When Uzi did not get Sivir, he struggled heavily, and his lack of synergy with his team really showed. Despite putting a phenomenal performance in the regular season, he wasn't been able to click with his team well enough to consistently win, other than the times when OMG got Sivir. After much tumult and with Sivir's importance in the meta being lessened, OMG dropped to a seventh place finish in the regular season. Uzi and his team subsequently bombed out of the playoffs following a devastating loss to Vici Gaming. It turns out that they were not the allstar lineup they were promised to be, with Gogoing and Loveling dropping off significantly in performance from their previous seasons. Despite this, Uzi’s regular season performance was one the best in his career, and his 8-3 record on Sivir speaks to the impact he had when he got her. With rumors of Uzi's impending retirement following an elbow injury, this may have been one of the last times we were able to see the 18 year old prodigy truly display his skill.



Backline Threat: QG TnT

QG vs EDG Summer RR Week 5 Game 2

Qiao Gu exploded onto the scene as a very successful team in LPL. They finished the Summer split in second place with a record of 7-14-1, made the finals of their first LPL playoffs, going to a game 5 against LGD, and nearly qualified to Worlds. They achieved all this despite being an LSPL team only last split. The team is an exciting team that is centered around former CJ Entus Frost jungler Swift and his ability to impact the map. The team also happens to be one of the most coordinated teamfighting teams in the world, a lot of which can be attributed to the ability of their ADC TnT. TnT, formerly of LMQ and Royal Club under various names such as Avenger, F1sh, and Qu1et, receives a majority of his team’s resources after Swift, and uses it well by being the more stable backup carry to Swift’s ridiculous aggression. Without TnT, QG could not be as successful as they are currently, and would likely have accrued much more match losses.



Facing off against Deft’s previously undefeated Jinx in Week 5 of the Regular Season, QG needed to do what no other LPL team had ever done, take down the dominant EDG with Deft on his best champion. They countered Jinx’s innate immobility with a genius drafting phase, with Hecarim, Nocturne and Kassadin providing huge dive potential, and with Sivir and Janna providing mobility boosts to the entire team. QG repeatedly took down Deft’s Jinx, and Swift was the star of the show with his continued dives to blow up either Deft or Baeme. However, the silent other carry of the team was, once again, not Swift, but TnT’s brilliant Sivir. TnT managed to do massive damage to EDG’s frontline without dying so that QG could repeatedly win 5v5 teamfights. Without TnT’s performance on Sivir, Deft’s Jinx would have continued its undefeated reign of terror for much longer.



TnT would lane 2v2 along with TcT’s Janna against the bottom lane of Jinx/Thresh. TnT went dead even with Deft in lane, crucially blocking every one of Meiko’s hooks with perfectly timed spellshields. This would continue for the next ten to fifteen minutes, in which time Deft and TnT were nearly completely even, with TnT getting a slight gold advantage with an Avarice Blade while Deft secured the top turret when TnT laneswapped to the bottom lane.



At 16 minutes, both teams would hover near the dragon, which had just respawned. Swift and Doinb, on Nocturne and Kassadin, would suddenly engage on an out-of-position Baeme, who was forced to flash due to the immobility of Viktor. Shortly after, a fight broke out after Doinb got hooked by Meiko, forcing TcT to use a flash Monsoon to save him. Meanwhile, TnT uses his ultimate so that V, on Hecarim, can catch up to the fight as well. TnT would constantly move forwards with his Sivir into EDG, allowing his team to catch out the rest of EDG’s members and win the teamfight 4 to 2, instantly removing both Deft and Baeme from the teamfight. QG would be too low to take any direct advantage after this fight, but this first fight set the precedent for the teamfights that were to follow.







At 22 minutes, another teamfight broke out in the mid lane, with Swift jumping on Deft this time. Deft was able to make enough of an escape that he took Swift down before himself dying, and TnT was too far away to have a meaningful impact in most of the teamfight. By the time he caught up with his ultimate, he made a positioning error and was caught by the combination of Koro1 and Clearlove’s Maokai and Rek’Sai. His death left EDG with a 3 kills to 1 advantage, which they capitalized on by taking down two turrets in the mid lane. Near Baron at 25 minutes, Doinb was caught by yet another one of Meiko’s hooks, which forced TnT to ult so his team could run away without losing more members. Unfortunately for QG, Swift would be caught as well after QG maneuvered their way back to the Baron pit, removing any chance for a potential steal. QG would trade Baron for an outer turret, losing the trade and only getting the outer mid turret due to TnT’s auto resets with Ricochet. They would rely on TnT’s waveclear against the Baron empowered minions, not having another real source of waveclear on the team.



EDG would hover around the second Baron, hoping to secure it to gain advantage over the next dragon. However, an attempted pick onto V backfired as Swift promptly jumped on Deft again, taking him out almost instantaneously. At the same time, TnT would use his ultimate to give Doinb and TcT a slight movement speed bonus before they both jumped into the fight. Immediately targeting Baeme next, TnT would get a delayed quadra kill in the fight after taking out EDG’s members one by one. QG grabbed the second baron, evening out the game.







Around 36 minutes, after QG took their second dragon, TnT used his ultimate again so Swift and V could jump onto Deft and Baeme. Unfortunately for QG, the team got separated, so only Deft went down while Baeme survived long enough so that he was able to kill TnT, who was unable to shake off EDG’s front line in this fight. Disaster would strike QG again as Doinb was once again carelessly caught by Meiko’s hook, which led Swift into engaging, resulting in his death and another Baron for EDG. While attempting to escape after taking the mid tier two turret, Clearlove would use his Rek’sai ultimate to jump on TnT and the rest of the team. While TnT was crafty enough to use both his Banshee’s Veil and Spellshield to avoid crowd control before ulting to run away, Doinb was not lucky enough to escape EDG. This led to EDG breaking QG's base after taking down the middle inhibitor.



But QG were not out of the game yet. When EDG were sieging the bottom inhibitor turret, Swift and TnT simultaneously engaged using their ultimates, immediately taking out Deft. Then, after successfully taking out Baeme, QG ended with a perfect ace, and immediately pushed to EDG’s nexus for victory. The stunning upset ended Deft’s 19 game winning streak with Jinx, on a game that QG had been pushed to the brink for.



TnT’s Sivir in teamfights was the reason QG were able to do enough damage to take down the heavy frontline of Maokai and Rek’Sai, despite QG not having a very tanky frontline to protect their ADC`. He knew exactly where to be in teamfights, with the two times he was caught out in teamfights due to poor positioning ending very badly for QG. TnT’s Sivir ult usage was of particular note during this game. Whenever TnT would use his ult, he would make sure that someone else on his team would get the initial speed boost for that ever so slightly faster engage. Also, his positioning alternated from staying very safely in the backline to diving past EDG’s frontline to kill either Baeme or Deft. In the last teamfight, TnT would flash forward and over a wall to kill Baeme and remove all of EDG’s damage, leaving the EDG’s frontline which had tried to keep him occupied stranded with nowhere to go.







Naturally, Swift received the MVP award for his initiations on Nocturne removing either Deft or Baeme from relevance. However, sitting quietly at 8/2/9, was TnT. Participating in all but the first two kills, his presence in teamfights led to QG's victory after Swift would burst Deft down and die almost instantly. Although Swift got all the attention, TnT’s performance was equally as necessary for QG to defeat Deft’s Jinx.



Although QG failed to make worlds, they have shown growth over the season, going from an uncoordinated bunch that merely stomped lanes in LSPL to a cohesive unit that can win teamfights despite going down in gold many times early in the game. TnT especially has proven himself to be one of the best ADCs in the world, and his absence from the World stage shall be surely missed. He is, however, better off than he has been before, no longer stuck in LSPL as he had for many splits in the past. If QG can continue to grow, maybe then TnT will be able to prove to the world that he really is one of the best ADCs in the game.

Supporting as the ADC

A common trend is that basically every team in the world has at one point picked Sivir. Bang, Uzi, and TnT are all some of the best at their role in their respective regions, so phenomenal play is almost to be expected from them. In Uzi’s case, he is the best player on his team currently, and his Sivir play has been a major reason for OMG’s wins this split. Despite Bang and TnT not being the star players on their team, they are able to utilize their opportunities well, and pushed Sivir near her maximum potential to become threatening carry forces. Against GE, Bang had all of SKT’s damage, and stepped up to the plate to carry his team. TnT, on the other hand, had one role in doing damage as long as possible, and did that role to the best of his ability, winning QG the game even after their dive assassination was finished.



However, even on teams where the AD carry isn’t required to be a carry force, there are many times when Sivir works as a successful pick. In these cases, her job is to be merely cleanup, and to use her ultimate for initiation. Good ultimate usage allows for the carries on a Sivir’s team to get a massive teamfighting bonus, usually ending in a win for the team with the Sivir.



A couple of AD carries who play Sivir as a more supportive champion include KT Rolster’s Arrow, Team Impulse’s Apollo, and Fnatic’s Rekkles. Despite Arrow getting a pentakill with his Sivir in the Summer Split, he hasn’t ever carried on her. Arrow has allowed Ssumday, their carry toplaner, to do more with what he has whenever he picks Sivir. This is primarily because Arrow has not proven to be a reliable carry force for KT Rolster over the year, while Ssumday has grown into one of the best top laners in the world. Apollo is very similar to Arrow, as he is not one of the best AD carries in North America. However, his Sivir picks have allowed Team Impulse to engage on their opponents with remarkable efficiency, especially in their week 6 game against Counter Logic Gaming, where his Sivir ultimates allowed the rest of his team to pick off a mispositioned CLG and win from behind, despite Doublelift being fed on Jinx.



Rekkles is a bizarre exception to the other two above. His Sivir games have been all right, and there’s been nothing particularly memorable one way or another about them. He hasn’t been necessarily bad, but he hasn’t played a Sivir game in any of Fnatic’s games where the pressure has been on him to carry. This is probably the result of Fnatic being so far ahead of their region that they haven’t yet played a game where Rekkles’s Sivir has been called on to hard carry. Nonetheless, he just uses his ultimate to let a usually fed Huni, Reignover, or Febiven to jump on the opposing team and destroy them in a teamfight, picking up a few cleanup kills on the way.



Something, however, that is particularly standout about the West is a remarkable lack of hard carrying on Sivir in general. There have been only a handful of games in the West where a Sivir has taken over and carried their team to victory, and no North American or European team has ever consistently relied on a Sivir as their exclusive source of damage. Why? Is this because Sivir players in the West suck? Are Asian AD carries just naturally better at the game?



These don’t feel like the correct answers to me. One of the problems that has struck me about Western Sivir players is an apparent lack of killer instinct with Sivir. A sentiment with Sivir that many Westerners seem to have is “you press ult and win”. Although that isn’t entirely wrong, with the above examples showing successful examples of using Sivir as a more utility-based champion, Sivir is at the end of the day an AD carry. As in, Sivir is supposed to be the carry that the team protects and who does consistent DPS. Western Sivir players rarely seem to try to carry, instead forcing themselves into a more supportive role.



These next two examples will be of Western AD carries, who are among the best in their region. They are the star players in their teams, and can easily hard carry games if they have to. Yet, for some reason, they either don't try or don't execute it well when they get Sivir.



Unfortunate Hesitation: GMB Forgiven

GMB vs FNC Week 2

Forgiven is not a Sivir player. He does not like the champion, and clearly is uncomfortable while playing it. Despite Sivir being such an important meta pick for the entirety of Season 5 thus far, he did not pick her once when on SK in Spring, and has only played her 3 times in the summer, only getting a single win on the champion. He has been quoted in the past for saying that Sivir is for “Genja-like players who just ult to get free assists”.



For such an outspoken player, it was extremely surprising when he picked Sivir for the first time against EU’s best team Fnatic. They would go on to lose this match, and although Forgiven was most definitely not the reason for Gambit’s loss, his performance was not particularly impressive either. Forgiven finished the 42 minute game with 448 cs, the most cs on the map, and with an endgame total of 17.1k gold, second only to Febiven’s Azir. He was clearly the most powerful member on his team. Despite this, he only managed a meager 23.8k damage onto champions, doing less damage than Rekkles’ Ezreal, despite sporting a fully offensive build with 0 defensive items. Why couldn’t Forgiven have done more?



Unfortunately for Forgiven, while his ability to find farm in the game was excellent, his play around the Sivir ultimate was poor. In the entire game, not once did Forgiven use Sivir’s ultimate in a particularly meaningful manner. Most of the game he would use his ultimate after either Diamondprox’s Gragas or Gosu Pepper’s Alistar had engaged on the enemy, and was late to follow up. This resulted in Fnatic’s team members disengaging rather easily, as the rest of Gambit were never in a position to capitalize on pick opportunities made onto Fnatic. More egregiously, there were many times when Forgiven just wasn’t there. In Gambit’s 6 kills, Forgiven was only involved in two, getting spoonfed one after Rekkles was carelessly caught out in a warded bush, and getting an assist in a teamfight at Baron. More often, Forgiven spent his time pushing side waves and getting farm, but not in the way Uzi did against iG. Rather, Forgiven was left alone while Uzi would get his team to make picks and snowball him and his team further. Although Forgiven was more powerful than Rekkles for the entirety of the game, Rekkles proved many times more useful than Forgiven did.



The most crucial teamfight occurred near the Baron pit at 34 minutes into the game. Fnatic attempted a pick onto Diamondprox, using the cover of the Fog of War to conceal themselves. However, it did not work, and Huni was left stranded with Gambit’s team on the other side of the pit. Forgiven would hesitate here, and use his ult too late. Had he immediately followed up with his ult, they could have caught Huni’s immobile Cho’gath and potentially win a 5v4. Because of Forgiven’s hesitation, Fnatic would disengage extremely well, with Febiven’s Sand Soldiers locking down Gambit so they couldn’t engage on the remaining four members. Forgiven would spend most of that fight running in circles, a clear difference from TnT’s teamfighting with the champion. Forgiven, being Gambit’s primary source of damage with four offensive items, would do no damage for approximately half of the fight. When it looked like Forgiven had finally found a good position to get auto-attacks off, Febiven's Azir immediately jumped over the wall and evaporated him in about a second.







Forgiven has a problem with Sivir, and that is clear from watching his play on the champion. He does not engage well with the champion, and his teamfighting is lackluster on her. Despite Forgiven having the same amount of strength with Sivir that he would have on another champion with his items, Forgiven just does not have the impact that he would have if he was on his more favored Corki or Lucian. Although Fnatic was a better team than Gambit in their matchup, Gambit was giving Fnatic a hard time in that match, having taken the first four dragons nearly uncontested. A better performance by Forgiven could have led Gambit to beating Fnatic. Instead, Fnatic went undefeated during the regular season, while Gambit missed playoffs. Although they made it back over mousesports, Forgiven's recent Heroes of the Storm play makes one wonder if he'll come back to the league.







At the Brink: CLG Doublelift

CLG vs TL week 9: First Place Tiebreaker

This split has been a split of redemption for both Counter Logic Gaming and Doublelift. After their phenomenal collapse to Team Liquid in the quarterfinals of the Spring Playoffs and Link’s much publicized departure from the team, the team truly looked as if they were once again going to suffer from mediocrity. Despite having a strong start to the split again, the team looked in serious trouble after dropping four consecutive games in weeks 5 and 6. And yet, this split CLG managed to hold on. They would close out the season winning 6 straight games, only dropping their very last game to Team Liquid in the tiebreaker to determine which team would get first place in the split. With a dominant performance in the playoffs, not dropping a single game, CLG secured their first title in years, returning to Worlds as the top North American seed. Doublelift has captained his team marvellously, leading the league in both kills and GPM, and boasting a remarkable 79.7% kill participation, which is remarkable for an ADC.



Doublelift’s Sivir is probably the best in North America. His play on the champion has been fantastic, and he can play the champion both as a carry and in more of a supportive role. However, I am still unable to name him as one of the great Sivir carry players in the world. He displays questionable tendencies in his teamfighting, which has historically been his Achilles Heel, and does not impress as much as some of the greater Sivir players in the East play like the ones listed above, despite playing in a much weaker region. He is almost there, but isn’t quite ready to join the ranks of the best Sivir players in the world.



In this tiebreak, which is the most recent game he’s played on Sivir, Doublelift was playing phenomenally for about 90 percent of the match. He outlaned Piglet’s Kalista despite Aphromoo giving up a careless first blood in lane, and had great ultimate usage to give CLG the early lead. A brilliant teleport from ZionSpartan’s Fizz and coordinated ultimate usage from Doublelift at 15 and a half minutes let CLG get two kills for only Aphromoo’s life. Later on, despite losing Xmithie early on, Doublelift kited out TL until CLG could reengage onto them to pop his ultimate, and led CLG to an ace, spellshielding Piglet’s Rend which would have been fatal. By 20 minutes, CLG looked in control of the game.



Only a minute later, CLG would make a costly mistake. Zion flanked while Doublelift used his ultimate again, but TL would disengage easily. Despite this, Pobelter overcommitted with Destiny, immediately getting picked and dying. TL would then dive onto CLG, ending up with four free kills. Doublelift was too far back when he tried to engage onto TL, and because TL was able to disengage so freely, he positioned himself too far forward, thinking they would make the catch onto TL. Unfortunately, this resulted in his and Aphromoo’s deaths under the turret, as he had already expended his ultimate in the failed engage.



The gold would still be even at this point, and at 25 minutes TL made a teleport play to pick off Xmithie again. Doublelift had to burn his ultimate in order to ensure the safety of the rest of CLG, and TL would head to Baron. CLG would try to force TL off of Baron, and they almost escaped for free. However, Doublelift stepped on a Nidalee trap which allowed IWD to Pounce onto him, forcing him out of the fight and nearly dealing enough damage to kill him, only being saved by Aphromoo’s clutch Monsoon. Without Doublelift’s damage output CLG would trade one for one but lose dragon. If Doublelift spellshielded the trap, or did not step on it, he would have still been in the fight, giving CLG the damage to probably win the teamfight.







Doublelift would make a fantastic play at approximately 29 minutes, ulting to try to pick off Piglet and Xpecial as Xpecial rotated to save Piglet. Pobelter, who used Destiny to teleport next to Piglet, was unable to finish him off, but Doublelift killed Xpecial successfully. CLG would then rotate to Baron, continuing the Baron dance that had been continuing for around 10 minutes. However, because Piglet was able to escape, TL would come in 4v5 to stop CLG’s Baron attempt. CLG should have backed off of the Baron or fully committed, but Doublelift had no ultimate. The brief moment of hesitation cost them, and Doublelift’s overaggressive attempt to kill a low Piglet and Fenix resulted in him getting nearly one-shot, guaranteeing that CLG would lose the subsequent teamfight, and thus, the Baron. TL would siege with their Baron, and would pick off Doublelift who failed to spellshield Xpecial’s hook, resulting in CLG losing the mid inhibitor and inhibitor turret. One more failed teamfight near Dragon resulted in CLG losing the game, despite Doublelift’s mostly commendable performance.







Ninety percent of the time, Doublelift looked like a great Sivir. He made plays on the map with his ultimate that were coordinated with the rest of CLG, and he did very well in the teamfights that CLG won. Unfortunately, Doublelift was a little careless during teamfights, costing CLG close teamfights that they could have won. Although CLG’s loss to TL was not on Doublelift’s shoulders, his crucial positioning mistakes cost CLG dearly. If one of the good Eastern Sivir players had been playing instead of Doublelift, like say TnT, then CLG might have been able to win the close fights that swung the game in TL’s favor. Doublelift is on the brink of being one of the great Sivir players of today, but his positioning cost him from that honor.

Learning from the Veteran: Jin Air Cpt Jack

Jin Air vs Koo Tigers Summer RR Week 4 Game 2

It would not be fair to talk about Sivir without mentioning the greatest Sivir player to ever play the game. Jin Air’s Cpt Jack has been famous for his Sivir for years, dating all the way back to 2012 when he was the best AD carry in Korea when on Azubu Blaze. His teamfighting has always been incredible, and his skill with cleanse and spellshield is still the greatest of all time. In a teamfight against Xenics Storm way back in 2012, Cpt Jack Spellshielded a Malphite ult, Flashed out of a Morgana ult, used QSS on a Urgot ult, and cleansed a Leona ult, all perfectly and back to back.

Thus far in Season 5 with the continued importance of the Sivir pick, along with long-time favorite champions such as Corki, Graves, and Vayne being important all at different times in the meta, Cpt Jack’s appearance would be expected. He has had a decent season, leading Jin Air to many victories off of the calculated teamfighting that made him such a household name in Korea. However, peculiarly Jack has not attained the success that would have been expected of him. A majority of Jin Air’s games have actually been started by the other ADC on Jin Air, Pilot. An up-and-coming talent who used to be on the Falcons before roster reconsolidation, Pilot has showed some moments of brilliance but has largely not been as impactful as his veteran teammate. Jin Air has suffered from not consistently starting their veteran leader, who played an important role in shotcalling for Jin Air ever since he led the revamped Jin Air Stealths from mediocrity in Spring 2014.



As a result, Jack’s performances this year haven’t been the stellar performances that you might expect from a Sivir legend such as himself. In a majority of games he doesn’t do the flashy carrying, simply staying on the back line and doing enough damage for his teammates to clean up. For a team that generally prefers kiting and poking the enemy team out, it makes sense that his role on the team is to be unflashy and just deal lots of damage. In most of Jack’s performances on Sivir he’s just been quietly there, doing damage whenever possible, using his Ultimate whenever necessary, Spell Shielding crucial spells; almost strikingly similar to the reduced overall role the ADC has taken thus far in Season 5.



There was, however, one particularly impressive performance on Sivir that provided flashbacks to the former flashy Cpt Jack on CJ Blaze, the one that would singlehandedly carry games whenever his team looked down and out of it, and whose teamfighting when he was on point was one of the best in the world. Down a game against the Koo Tigers, who were finally looking resurgent after a disappointing loss to SKT in the Spring Finals, Jin Air brought out a Sivir-Lulu composition, strikingly similar to the pocket composition that SKT first used to beat Koo, then still known as GE, so soundingly back in spring. The biggest difference between the comps was Chei being on an engage-heavy Annie rather than a Janna with more peel. As a result, Chei would take the credit off of brilliant engages, while Jack settled down into a more cleanup-heavy role. He would accumulate a scoreline of 10/2/2, but like his role in most of 2015, was not the star of the composition that was supposed to feature him as primary carry.



Jack’s laning phase was rough in this game, as he gave up first blood to Pray’s Vayne in a matchup that favored him. He went even in cs as a result, and with the reliance of Jin Air on winning early in this match, it did not look good for them. However, a timely Tibbers cast from Chei helped to turn the game in Jin Air’s favor, picking off a vulnerable Gorilla on Karma. The exchange led to the top outer and inner turrets being taken by Jin Air, but they stayed a little too long and lost Jack and Chei as a result.



The game first exploded with a quick pick onto Pray near the mid inner turret at 23 minutes in. Jack used his ult in coordination with Chei’s Flash Tibbers combo to chunk Pray out instantly, and then sprinted top to pick Smeb on Maokai. Jin Air would get a sizeable lead, forcing Koo to attempt to stall out the game by constantly threatening around Baron. After a 6 minute stalemate, Chei got a double stun onto Kuro’s LeBlanc and Gorilla’s Karma, leading to an eventual triple kill for Jack as he worked his way through Koo. This led to a Baron, and Koo went to fight them again. Jack would get another double kill as he steamrolled through Koo with Whimsy and Lulu’s shield on him.



Jin Air finally had the sizeable advantage they wanted, and immediately went to siege Koo’s inhibitors. Jack would get shield after shield from GBM, and combined with his immaculate skillshot dodging and spellshield usage would sit near the turret and continually auto it down. Finally, after taking down the bottom inhibitor turret, Jack would jump aggressively onto Pray’s Vayne, eventually getting another triple kill and ultimately the game.







Jack didn’t look as flashy in this game as Bang did earlier against Koo. This was to be expected as Chei took the credit for the flashy engages that turned an even game heavily in Jin Air’s favor. What Jack excelled at rather than Bang was his almost immaculate positioning before and after teamfights, and especially during sieges. There were many times when Jack had a Lulu shield on him and could freely soak up damage, but he always made sure to dodge any skillshots to increase his damage output onto turrets. His spellshields in the game were all instantaneous, and although none were as flashy as the ones he had against Xenics Storm in Summer of 2012, they blocked whatever spell was thrown at Jack right before he would get hit.



Jack’s positioning on Sivir and his spellshield usage on her is the best in the world, fitting his role as Jin Air’s unflashy source of damage. Jack’s unflashy play is fitting to Jin Air’s style of being patient, waiting out the enemy with superior lategame rotations and choking enemies out with poke and avoiding flanks and fighting in general. Unfortunately for Jin Air, their one-minded strategy has led them to a disastrous end to the season, dropping matches to an otherwise winless Sbenu and Anarchy and thus missing the playoffs entirely. Jin Air would not start Cpt Jack for the Regional playoffs, and thought they looked good taking down NaJin e-mFire and CJ Entus, were ultimately outclassed by KT Rolster. Cpt Jack has been a pro gamer for a while, and his years of impressive teamfighting may be over. But maybe, if Sivir still is important in Season 6, Jack will return to show the world why he is the best Sivir player in history.

Fading Brilliance

R - On The Hunt

INITIAL MOVEMENT SPEED: 60% at all ranks ⇒ 40/50/60%



HUNTING PARTY: Allies that enter On The Hunt's radius after the cast are given the same bonus movement speed value and duration Sivir currently has. (Previously, Allies were given 2/3/4 seconds of the Initial movement speed no matter when they joined On The Hunt)



-5.15 Patch Notes



It’s no secret that Sivir has dominated the metagame for an extremely long time. This is primarily due to her role as a strong initiator, a trait that most AD carry champions lack. Added to the fact that a Sivir played to near perfection will do an unexpected amount of damage and you get a champion who’s strong in a metagame where AD carries are weak. Her nerfs, however, hit upon a key part of her kit, her incredible engage which aids teamfighting, disengaging, or even picking off careless stragglers. Without the incredible utility of Sivir’s ultimate, she may see less top tier play than before. More and more players are picking champions like Vayne, Tristana, and Kog’Maw into or instead of her, a dramatic shift of the meta where she was the top pick alongside Kalista. More and more frequently drafts happen where Sivir is left unpicked or unbanned, a dramatic shift from when she was almost always a priority champion. With these final nerfs to Sivir, and the recent advent of Juggernauts starting from 5.16, her era in competitive play this season may have drawn to a close.



If anything, though, the best Sivir players have showed us that Sivir is a champion to be feared. In the right hands, she can turn around fights by herself. Maybe we will still see Sivir despite the nerfs, and maybe throughout the rest of the season we will still see fantastic Sivir plays that have been so ubiquitous throughout the Eastern scenes.

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