CBLOL 2022 Split 1 Week 1 Wrap-up

CBLoL 2022 Split 1 Week 1 Standings

1. KaBuM! e-Sports (2–0)
1. Netshoes Miners (2–0)
1. RED Canids (2–0)
4. FURIA Esports (1–1)
4. Liberty (1–1)
4. LOUD (1–1)
4. paiN Gaming (1–1)
8. Flamengo Esports (0–2)
8. INTZ (0–2)
8. Rensga (0–2)

1. KaBuM! e-Sports (W1: 2–0) INTZ + paiN

I know I meme’d about KaBuM! basically just replacing their top side Koreans for another 2 top side Koreans, but this really is supposed to be an upgrade. Not only do Parang and Wiz have pre-existing synergy, but both Parang and Wiz have more experience in CBLOL, which counts for a lot in bringing the team some measure of stability. Furthermore, Hauz had previously put up some impressive K/D/A stats. I’m not quite sure how they’ll come together… but we’re about to find out.

Up against INTZ for their opening match, KaBuM! was favoured, and expected to have a strong showing. Right away in the draft phase, it could be seen that KaBuM! had done their homework as they got strong meta picks like Caitlyn, Viktor and Lee Sin. In the early game, the team showed their comfort on the champions, and more importantly, how Wiz and Parang were going to fit into the team, as Wiz went nuts invading and pulling of Insecs while Parang bullied the top lane. Hauz and Disave had perfect games as well, going deathless, while pumping out plenty of damage.

In their rescheduled game against paiN, KaBuM! continued with relentless aggression led by Wiz. paiN put up a much tougher fight in their lanes, and KaBuM! could only really find a lead in their bot lane. Thankfully, KaBuM! didn’t have to play through their lanes. Instead, the were just always a step ahead in map movement, getting first move on ganks, objectives and the nexus.

It’s been a strong start for KaBuM!, with a strong understanding of the new meta. More importantly, Wiz has reintegrated into the team with absolutely no problems. With Wiz as the driving force for plays, KaBuM! have shown a high tempo play-style that CBLOL teams will have to adapt to. While initial reports look great, KaBuM! will be running into regional champions RED next week, and that’s when we’ll see how good this team really looks.

1. Netshoes Miners (W1: 2–0) Flamengo + INTZ

All aboard the Netshoes Miners train, as they went full speed into Week 1. Granted, neither Flamengo and INTZ are considered favourites going into the season, but it’s not just that Netshoes Miners won, but that they did it in style. While DoRun was a bit of an unknown coming into it, there were questions asked of Anyyy as well, after a disappointing year on FURIA.

Netshoes Miners made the game against Flamengo look like a warm up game as they went with a full-dive composition, and absolutely smashed the match-ups. While Croc and DoRun had the lion’s share of kills, Anyyy stood out to me the most, as he became the main engage for the team as Vex. Finding repeated engages into the back-line, Flamengo simply could not find an answer Anyyy’s rebellious emo phase.

I love that Netshoes Miners are not afraid to break meta and pull out some fun picks. By no means are these troll picks, as the jungle Poppy for Croc denied a lot of INTZ’s engage options, and Kassadin for Anyyy punished the meta Corki mid that we’ve seen far too much. With answers in almost every lane, Netshoes Miners looked primed to win off their draft. Yet, this is CBLOL, where expectations are constantly subverted. Netshoes Miners DID manage to win, but it was anything but easy, as INTZ gave as good as they got, forcing a 45+ minute game. For a while there, it even looked like INTZ might be able to take it, getting 2 barons and breaking open Netshoes Miners base! But Drop simply would not… well, drop. Starting off fights with Curtain Call and charging in to sweep up the remainder, Drop dragged Netshoes Miners to a 2–0 start.

Looking at their 2–0 score, Netshoes Miners look good. Looking at who they played, Netshoes Miners looks a little less shiny. Instead, let’s look at how they played. In their favour, they had strong drafts, not getting sucked into the meta, but instead playing a reactive draft that countered their opponents. Their actual game-play was a little messy when it came to macro, but their individual mechanics looked really solid, especially as the game got later and team-fights became the name of the game. As long as teams aren’t running Netshoes Miners over in the early macro, the purple train should continue to run over most other obstacles, and against paiN and Rensga next week… full steam ahead!

1. RED Canids (W1: 2–0) Rensga + LOUD

As the returning champions, and the only team with no changes on their roster at all, RED Canids are highly favoured, but were not considered without a challenge. The off-season saw 2 super-teams being formed in LOUD and FURIA, but RED Canids have the power of friendship, and more importantly, experienced teamwork on their side. Moreover, with the meta shifting towards ADCs on hyper-carries, TitaN is poised to continue dominating CBLOL.

After all that hyping up, RED’s very first game of 2022 almost gave me a heart attack. RED decided to handicap themselves and play the game on hell mode, with a random Samira pick into a composition of Corki/Ezreal/Yuumi which utterly out-ranged TitaN. Nevertheless, RED showed why they were the reigning champs as they took the ADC mismatch in stride, gracefully losing objectives, turrets and lives, only to turn it all in one fell swoop. When everything looked dark, Guigod swooped in to save Red from their sins, clutching out the first win of the split.

I don’t want to say “I knew it was all over when TitaN got Jinx”, but… well, I would have been surprised by any other outcome. Even against the oppressive Caitlyn/Lux combo, TitaN just would not be kept down! But as bright as TitaN shined, I would be remiss not bringing up Grevthar, who continued impressing me with his map awareness and roam strength as a mid-laner. Though not on his signature Kled, Grevthar had an epic Twisted Fate (first-picked too!) performance, constantly impacting the side-lanes. Eventually, surviving LOUD’s early game strength, RED just scaled up to the point where no one could threaten TitaN, but TitaN could threaten everything, especially that all-important Nexus.

Returning from Worlds to CBLOL, RED didn’t have the cleanest opening week. They did win both of the games though, and that’s what counts… on the score-sheet at least. While the game-play was a little messy, it really feels like it’s more RED trying out new things, rather than RED looking weaker than last year. If they can win games with TitaN not on hyper-carries, if Guigo is willing to play tanks, if Aegis picks up assassins, RED are only going to get scarier and scarier as they expand their viable win conditions.

4. FURIA Esports (W1: 1–1) LOUD + Flamengo

Touted as the new Brazilian super team, FURIA has a lot of expectations to live up to. Strong players in every roles, but while we’ve seen many a “super team”, they rarely perform right out the gate. As such, I’m going in with tempered expectations, especially for their match against LOUD, which is another Brazilian “super team”. Against Flamengo though… FURIA is highly favoured against what 60% of their roster calls their former organization.

The LOUD game was exciting, with all the action you could want. But as befits 2 newer teams with strong individual talent, things got messy. Sadly for FURIA, their composition preferred more of a front to back approach. fNb showed off why he won so many MVPs last split as he tried his best to thrive in the chaos, but Envy struggled immensely in trying to land shockwaves on multiple members in the fluid fights. Netuno often found himself exposed as well, left to the tender mercies of LOUD’s damage threats. In spite of all the adversity, FURIA managed to go toe-to-toe, racking up 17 kills to LOUD’s 19, partially fulfilling the expectation of a super-team. Not the most auspicious start, but certainly not a terrible one considering the odds.

Facing up against the former team of 60% of this roster, FURIA looked calm and downright cold at times. Rather than an explosive snowball leading to an avalanche, FURIA played a very subdued early game, actually falling behind in CS in every lane save bot. Even in the bot side, Netuno and RedBert failed to get the expected pressure with Caitlyn/Morgana. That isn’t to say that FURIA had no pressure early, they matched blow for blow with Flamengo, never letting the game get away from them. Instead, the super-team showed their experience in the mid-game, playing perfectly around their power spike. As soon as Envy picked up Luden’s, FURIA used the Vex-atious Shadow Surge to snipe out the carries of Flamengo, forcing fights. Smelling weakness in the water, the rest of FURIA followed up with zero hesitation, quickly blowing the game open.

For a supposed “super-team”, FURIA haven’t look invincible. Rather, they’ve looked like a strong team with a good shot at the Finals, but fallible. Perhaps my expectations were slightly overblown, since LOUD is also a star-studded team. With paiN Gaming on the docket for next week, that’ll be my test for whether FURIA are living up to their expectations. paiN isn’t quite as strong on paper, so if FURIA drop another game there… LOUD might just take the all-star mantle instead.

4. Liberty (W1: 1–1) paiN + Rensga

With only changes to the top and jungle positions, Liberty had relatively few changes in comparison to most of the other teams. However, the changes are generally considered downgrades as both fNb and Yampi were considered extremely strong players in their roles. The remaining players are all rock solid, and while they might be weaker, I still expect Liberty to be play-off contenders as Krastyel, Matsukaze and Wos are in a strong position this meta.

The first glance we get of Liberty comes up against a completely revamped Rensga, but this game looked more like a solo game. The game was all about Liberty, as they drafted the currently OP bot duo of Caitlyn/Lux for Matsukaze/Wos, paired with the ever-dangerous Zoe for Krastyel. Right off the bat, Liberty speed-ran the game with an early 3 kills in the first 5 minutes. From there, the returning Liberty players showcased why they were considered a top 2 team for most of 2021. We didn’t get to see too much of Kiari, but Disamis had a pretty decent showing, supported by dominant lanes.

In their rescheduled game against paiN, Liberty weren’t able to secure any decisive wins in the draft phase, and their early game suffered for it as a result. Without the explosive early lead for Matsukaze and Wos, Liberty seemed to just barely lose out in the early skirmishes. Losing skirmishes are a slippery slope, and as the death disadvantage began to mount, Liberty soon found themselves down 5k gold at 15 minutes, which soon almost tripled to a 14.7k gold deficit 10 minutes later, as Liberty were systematically dismantled.

The little taste of Liberty we got this week has me hungering for more. With a solid grasp of meta, and strong veterans, things are looking generally positive. However, their game against paiN did expose some critical issues, mainly that Liberty doesn’t look too good when playing form behind, with Krastyel, Matsukaze and Wos all being more conservative, while Kiari and Disamis haven’t look completely integrated yet. Teething pains, much like any other team, and plenty of space to grow.

4. LOUD (W1: 1–1) FURIA + RED

As mentioned above, LOUD has a pretty stacked roster, with Robo’s and tinowns’ transfer being one of the big headliners of the off-season. While Tay’s role-swap might prove to be an issue initially, the lanes on this team are just too strong. That said, fans of LOUD are in for an action-packed Week 1, as they face the other big stacked roster in FURIA, and the reigning champs RED Canids. It’s a trial by fire Week 1, but LOUD wouldn’t have it any other way.

Not only was the match against FURIA slated to be a banger, it was also the very 1st game of 2022! It had pretty much everything we were looking for, solo kills, early ganks, plenty of skirmishes, and constant aggression swinging leads back and forth. Ultimately the strong scaling of the draft, with tinowns on Corki and DudsTheBoy on Aphelios ended up winning the game, out-damaging FURIA. Not the cleanest of games, but then again, CBLOL has never been afraid to get a little dirty.

Speaking of which, LOUD’s game against RED certainly got rather messy at times, and that actually worked out in LOUD’s favour initially. With an early-game focused draft, LOUD did managed to secure leads in every lane. Where they struggled was in trying to match RED’s Twisted Fate global pressure, where RED just refused to fight where LOUD was strong. Unable to fully leverage their strength, LOUD played against the clock and got close, breaking RED’s inhibitor turret first. Sadly, close isn’t good enough, as LOUD ran out of time, and RED simply out-scaled, out-ranged and eventually out-fought LOUD for the win.

In spite of the 1–1 scoreline for Week 1, I think LOUD had a very strong showing, and is currently looking like the 2nd best team in the league (behind RED). Their lanes are looking strong and they know how to apply pressure with a lead (which they’ve managed to get in both their games so far). Their match next week against Liberty will be one to watch as Liberty has also shown similar strengths and perhaps, we’ll get to see LOUD play from an early deficit.

4. paiN Gaming (W1: 1–1) Liberty + KaBuM!

A year ago, paiN Gaming began 2021 as the super team meant to dominate the league. It certainly didn’t start that way for them, but they came together towards the end of the split to win it and represent Brazil at MSI 2021. Fast forward to 2022, and the team replaced 80% of the roster after failing to make it to Finals in 2021 Split 2. A starving camel is still bigger than a horse, and the name power of paiN is still enough to put together a roster with some big names. While it’s hard to match the heights of the 2021 roster, I still have decent hopes for this team and Week 1’s a pretty good gauge of things.

paiN Gaming vs Liberty was the finals rematch of 2021 Split 1, and the end result was pretty much the same as before. In a nice change from last year, paiN had a pretty decent draft, getting a lot of the meta power picks. As a whole, the team looked pretty coordinated as well, with everyone doing their part. The laning was strong as well, so paiN weren’t really tested at any point. To put things in perspective, only Damage died at all this game (5 deaths), no one else was ever really at risk. Clean start.

If paiN had managed to 2–0 the week, I would probably be ready to start the paiN train back up again. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be, as paiN ran into the newly revitalized KaBuM!. Again, solid draft with good laning characterized paiN’s game-play. Wizer, CarioK and dyNquedo all had good early games, with slight CS leads. Even in the team-fights, paiN Gaming was often able to answer kill for kill. So what happened to result in a loss? Well, paiN Gaming just felt slower to rotate in pretty much every situation. If they were able to get there and set-up, paiN could trade even. But there were just too many situations were KaBuM! made moves that paiN Gaming was simply not prepared to answer.

Despite the delays and reschedule due to positive COVID tests, paiN Gaming didn’t look particularly affected by it. A middling performance, but pretty much what I expected coming into the season. Individually, everyone is performing decently, so it’s really just a matter of cleaning up the macro.

8. Flamengo Esports (W1: 0–2) Netshoes Miners + FURIA

Flamengo Esports’ roster was completely gutted, and instead of trying to assemble a roster of proven talent, Flamengo opted to all-in their rising Academy talent who crushed the Academy competition. Even though I’m all for new talent… there’s a reason why they’re new, and they’ll need some time to adjust moving up. Up against 2 more experienced roster (though I suppose all the other rosters are more experienced…), I’m just looking for improvement from this team to start.

I’m going to acknowledge that the game against Netshoes Miners was not a good one for Flamengo up front, but there were some positives. For one, despite the incredibly painful draft for the teams, Boal, asta and Tutsz all performed well in their laning phase, matching their counterparts pretty well. Even when behind, Flamengo didn’t just fold and tried to make comeback plays. Granted, it didn’t work, and Tutsz really struggled with the shockwaves, but hey… welcome to the big leagues.

Part of me wishes this match against FURIA came later in the season, when Flamengo had some time to grow. Alas, reality is a harsh mistress, and rather than a revenge match against their predecessors, this felt more like a bit of a hazing from the seniors. Flamengo did well early, with Boal, Tutsz and asta getting themselves a bit of an early lead, but everything changed when the Envy Nation attacked. Flamengo did not look ready for the sheer disruption Envy put out in the back line, especially after asta and Bounty had initiated fights, Tutsz and Flare were left to die with no protection. Boal tried his best to carry the game, but there’s only so much a lone ninja can do.

Given my expectations at the beginning of this week, I’ll say that Flamengo didn’t do too shabby. You can tell that this team has some existing synergy, especially in the early game where asta has been able to make some good proactive plays. The laning has been pretty solid as well, and now that Flamengo have gotten a couple of games under their belt, they have a baseline for their performance. They’ve shown they can survive, now it’s time to show that they can win.

8. INTZ (W1: 0–2) KaBuM! + Netshoes Miners

INTZ is one of 2 rosters that have me scratching my head a little. I like that they acquired Yampi and I’m excited with Decoy’s acquisition… but I’m not really seeing how this team is going to gel together. While there’s some potential here, it doesn’t look like Week 1 was the time for it to shine.

Kick-ing off the split, INTZ looked about as coordinated as I expected. Which is to say, not very much so. They had some interesting ideas, with a Sivir/Karma bot lane to try and match Caitlyn’s range and pushing, but while the ideas were good, the execution was less so. INTZ played this game as 5 separate players rather than as a team, which hopefully isn’t a sign of language issues, and is more the teething pains of a new team.

Their 2nd game of the week against Netshoes Miners honestly didn’t look that much better. It was a much longer game, and INTZ were actually winning for a while, but it felt more like a result of both teams drafting scaling compositions combined with good picks from Yampi and Decoy. Tyrin, Kick and mica0 had decent laning, and when they found picks, were more than capable of punishing. Yampi and Decoy also managed to find some good catches to push INTZ into a mid-game lead. The problem was anything that wasn’t split-push or single picks. INTZ continued to struggle in team-fights, often leading to various members being isolated, which simply does not work into a Camille or Kassadin. As the game got longer, so did the death timers, and eventually, after 2 lost fights, INTZ found themselves sliding from a winning position to a loss.

Pretty much what we expected from this roster, and nowhere was it exemplified more than in Game 2. I’m pleasantly surprised by Kick’s performance so far, and glad that Decoy still looks good making action happen. The team still looks rather disjointed and macro is a little iffy, but it’s to be expected, and since it’s early weeks yet, I’ll allow it. That said, next week will see them facing off against FURIA (which is brutal) and Flamengo. A loss to FURIA won’t be surprising, but INTZ need to find a win against Flamengo, or risk finding themselves leading the pack from the bottom.

8. Rensga Esports (W1: 0–2) RED + Liberty

Bloody hell, Rensga had a 100% roster change, and they were the runners-up from 2022 Split 2. I had, and still have, no clue what I’m looking at. While some of these names are familiar to me, almost the entire roster took some (or all) of 2021 off from competitive League of Legends in their main roles. Given the lack of information, and Rensga’s track record for working with random players and elements… this team is likely the perfect storm, for better or for worse…

It’s a rough Week 1, but at least pressure makes diamonds… or breaks things. In what was supposed to be a 2021 Split 2 Finals rematch, Rensga actually managed to deliver, with an incredibly close game. If you just look at the post-game score, it seems obvious RED Canids won, but do yourself a favour and actually watch the game. Rensga was winning right up till the very last fight, where RED Canids clutched it out. With a solid scaling composition founded on the stereotypical Korean bot duo of Ezreal/Yuumi, Rensga didn’t look like a team that had taken a year off, but instead, a team that had secretly trained for that time instead.

As good as they looked on Saturday, Rensga had a complete 180 on Sunday, as they were utterly run over from the get-go. With a very squishy damage composition, Rensga could not afford to fall behind, but they gave up 3 kills on the bottom half of the map before 5 minutes, and that left Ayel completely vulnerable in the top side as Minerva had to stem the bleeding bot. Lurching from disaster to disaster, Rensga never found their footing, and found themselves quickly overwhelmed.

So far, there’s been bad news, and not-so-bad news from the opening week for the Cowboys. The bad news is that they’re 0–2 and look rather rusty. The not-so-bad news, is that it was against more experienced players that they struggled, and that they seem to have a solid grasp on the meta, and how they ought to play (if not so much the actual ability to execute just yet). While it’s difficult to be positive, if I think of Rensga as a bunch of new players instead of returning players, I can still see hope of them improving through the split.