Two powerhouses of the NA LCS faced off this week in the game of the week featuring Gravity (3-3) facing off against the seemingly unstoppable Aphromoo (0/1/10) and the rest of CLG (5-1). CLG was able to continue their domination of the NA LCS taking down Gravity without forfeiting the gold lead in the entire 35:11 game.
The game took a while to really get exciting, first blood wasn’t until 10:56 when a successful lane gank by Xmithie (3/2/8) helped ZionSpartan (0/2/11) take down Hauntzer (0/4/7) in the bottom lane. Xmithie patiently stalked his prey on Lee Sin, waiting under the tower out of sight for 30 seconds before making the play to move up after the ZionSpartan Frozen Tomb. Fortunately Gravity was able to get the initial dragon just before that happened, but the gold lead swung into CLG’s favor. Xmithie was unable to follow up on Saintvicious (2/5/4) when he unintentionally kicked him to safety over the wall at Blue Buff.
After the initial action there was another calm in the storm as the lanes resumed their usual farming. Just before the second dragon at 16:44 the lanes were nearly even with all lanes very close in CS and the biggest differential being +20 in favor of Link’s (10/1/4) Ezreal over Keane’s (2/4/5) Azir.
played my two favorite champions this week and won with em woot ^^
— Austin Shin (@CLG_Link) February 8, 2015
The second dragon was taken by CLG with a large but even teamfight immediately after when Hauntzer teleported down on Irelia to match ZionSpartan’s positioning. The fight was looking very good for Gravity when Link fired no doubt one of the best Trueshot Barrage’s we’ll see this split, connecting with four members of Gravity, coordinating with Aphromoo’s four man Pulverize. Unfortunately for CLG, it wasn’t enough to keep pressing on and Doublelift (3/1/5) was too low to continue the pursuit and only Keane would fall for Gravity making the fight an even one for one but allowing CLG the mid outer tower./p>
Just one minute later Link stepped up again picking up 3 more kills after a ZionSpartan initiation. His Trueshot Barrage would pick off Keane after a great setup by Aphromoo. The mid inner tower would fall to CLG and Cop (3/3/3) was caught bottom lane with nowhere to go.
Bad playcalling for Gravity then called for a baron where Saintvicious would be executed by baron and a 5k gold lead would be established. It wasn’t long before the momentum started to snowball generating more picks throughout the map along with towers, growing their gold lead to nearly 7k at 22 minutes.
Gravity wasn’t done yet and their teamfight potential brought them back somewhat after trading 4 for 1 and picking up their second dragon. Great positioning from Keane’s Azir allowed him to pick up a kill for himself and Cop’s Corki to help out with the cleanup. Note the flawless positioning of Azir’s Sand Soldiers to push up three of them right in the center of the DPS champions for CLG.
Man I got no kills that game do I look like a support to you guys
— Darshan Upadhyaya (@ZionSpartan) February 8, 2015
ZionSpartan certainly did look supportive, outclassed only by Aphromoo on his team. His initiations with Frozen Tomb were on point and helped to create opportunities. Two more picks from CLG were generated near baron because of the Lissandra. Immediately following that they picked up the buff and began pushing into the Gravity base. Gravity turtled and to their credit held CLG off of their inhibitors until long after the Baron Buff expired. However, the CLG lead was too great and they forced an ace on Gravity and pushed through the inhibitors and ended the game.
Check back next week for the Game of the Week featuring the rebranded Winterfox (2-4) take on Team Impulse in the first day of week 4.
