CBLOL 2022 Split 1 Week 4 Wrap-up
CBLoL 2022 Split 1 Week 4 Standings
1. FURIA Esports (7–1)
2. KaBuM! e-Sports (6–2)
3. Liberty (5–3)
3. LOUD (5–3)
3. RED Canids (5–3)
6. Netshoes Miners (3–5)
6. paiN Gaming (3–5)
8. Flamengo Esports (2–6)
8. INTZ (2–6)
8. Rensga (2–6)
1. FURIA Esports (W4: 2–0) Liberty + KaBuM!
Due to the slowly escalating difficulty of FURIA’s schedule, there are doubters out of FURIA supremacy out there. Yet the face that they’re 5–1 cannot be denied, and more importantly, their win over RED should go some ways to silencing critics. Week 4 could be considered the culmination of FURIA’s journey to the top, facing Liberty and KaBuM!. A loss here would still leave FURIA in the upper echelons, but for a super-team, only 1st place would be acceptable.
There were high expectations for this match, and the game delivered. This wasn’t a one-sided match by any stretch of the imagination. With fNb facing off against his former team, there was a surprising lack of early pressure into the top lane for either team. Instead, the bot lane was the focus of attention, where Liberty tried to set Netuno behind. Turrets and dragons were traded evenly, and as the Baron spawned, both teams started the Baron dance, trading positioning and damage. It was close, 5 full minutes of ebb and flow, but finally FURIA manages to force the engage they were looking for, breaking the balance in the most violent way possible and punching their ticket to the match of the week.
Having warmed up on the 3rd place team, FURIA were more than ready to take sole 1st place in a titanic clash of the top 2. FURIA went with a typical front-to-back team composition into KaBuM!’s creative double assassin draft, and were completely unflappable. fNb continued to be that game-warping force as he found multiple solo-kills throughout the game, quickly disrupting KaBuM!’s strategy and forcing them to look almost solely at him. With the space bought by fNb, FURIA simply scaled past the early danger zone, grouped up and never gave KaBuM!’s assassins a chance to find anyone but fNb alone. Moving as 5 (or 4), FURIA played to their draft’s strengths and simply brute-forced everything they needed to win.
The super-team has lived up to it’s expectations, fNb continues to impress as the best top-laner in the league. While FURIA haven’t always had the flashiest of wins, no one can deny that they are looking just a cut above their opponents in the current meta. With carries in every single role, FURIA rarely take unnecessary strategic risks, and are strongly reminiscent of Flamengo last year at their peak. That comparison looms large though, as Ranger, Netuno and RedBert struggled immensely in the latter half of both 2021 splits after early success. Can they change their fate this year?
2. KaBuM! e-Sports (W4: 1–1) Netshoes Miners + FURIA
Currently looking like the best team in the league, KaBuM! took that position with a commanding win over Liberty last week. But the title isn’t cemented quite yet, as KaBuM! are currently tied in the standings with FURIA, who they’ll be facing on Sunday. While Wiz has been drawing eyes in the early game, Parang and Hauz have really started stepping up, and if they can continue to perform, they’re favoured to win the sole first spot.
Step 1 of Week 4: beat Netshoes Miners to continue maintaining tied 1st — check. The process of the win was slightly uncharacteristic of KaBuM!, though I think credit for this goes more to Netshoes Miners. Wiz was a little quieter than expected in the early game, and KaBuM! didn’t quite manage to secure a CS or tempo lead in the early game. However, a top team is a top team for a reason, and KaBuM!’s real win-condition has always been the mid-game fights. So when turrets began to fall, KaBuM! began grouping up, and the 5-man juggernaut started to gain momentum. It only took a handful of team-fights for KaBuM! to utterly overwhelm Netshoes Miners and march on to the fated Match of the Week.
This is why I love KaBuM!. In the big game for sole 1st place, KaBuM! whip out the newly re-adjusted Ahri, as well as the surprise Zed jungle pick. It’s madness, it’s coin-flip, it’s KaBuM!. Regrettably, things did not work out for KaBuM! quite the way they’d hoped. While the Zed pick went well for Wiz, farming efficiently and picking up an early kill, Parang was hemorrhaging in the top lane, and against a Gwen no less. Wiz and Hauz tried to stem the bleeding, but it was too late, FURIA only needed a little reinforcements to turn tides, even at a numbers disadvantage. Recognizing that fights were not going in their favour, KaBuM! Tried to go for split-push, and it did indeed delay the game, but it wasn’t enough to take it. For a game hyped up as the match of the week, it sounds a little simple to say top diff, but that’s what it ultimately came down to.
Although KaBuM! have taken their 2nd loss of the split, they can keep their heads held high with their 2nd place performance thus far. Personally, I’m happy with the fact that KaBuM! are still experimenting, not content to rest on their laurels, and even in their loss, you could see that they fully understood their changing win conditions.
3. Liberty (W4: 1–1) FURIA + Flamengo
Despite their loss to KaBuM! in Week 3, Liberty are still looking like a monster of a team. When their early game stronghold is maintained, their mid-game movements are incredibly crisp. When KaBuM! overwhelms them, well… things are less pretty. It is important to note that only KaBuM! have managed to overwhelm them in the early game. This will be put to the test against FURIA though, who have managed to wrestle away the highest GD@15 position from Liberty and are looking to widen the cracks in Liberty’s slightly dented position.
The early game bastion of Liberty held on, trading pressure with FURIA and playing slowly but surely to their win condition. Krastyel and Disamis abandoned Kiari in the top lane, and instead took frequent business trips to the bot lane to join Matsukaze and Wos in keeping down the eventual scaling threat that is Jinx. While it’s hard to call it a huge success, Liberty were neck-and-neck with FURIA for pretty much the entire game. Baron soon became the paramount objective in the game, and neither FURIA nor Liberty could quite find a way to claim the prize. For a solid 5 minutes, tensions mounted as the 2 teams tried their hand at sneaking Baron, poking each other, clearing vision. As tends to be the case with these matters, when the dam broke, the resulting flood just tore everything down. Liberty made one small mistake, getting caught a little bit on the back foot, and everything just exploded. Liberty were wiped, Baron was lost and FURIA charged into the Liberty base. A close loss, and still a game Liberty can be proud of.
Liberty was not happy with their losses against KaBuM! and FURIA, and it felt like they took it out on Flamengo. It wasn’t quite a perfect game, as Liberty was more than willing to trade the occasional death, and tower, but it was a massacre. In contrast to their usual defensive laning, Krastyel on Twisted Fate made good on the Destiny ultimate, forcing the pace of the game as soon as he hit level 6. Liberty never quite let up, and despite a bit of a hiccup around 2nd Baron, there was never any real question Liberty were firmly in control of the game.
It’s starting to look like we have a clear top 3 forming here in CBLOL, with FURIA, KaBuM! and Liberty playing very closely to each other. Liberty has also been looking progressively more dangerous as it feels like their engines are slowly warming up. Evolving from a passive early laning phase, this week has shown a Krastyel and Disamis who are aggressive and capable of forcing early leads. Even if Kiari, Matsukaze and Wos continue to be more lane-focused, Liberty still feel like a balanced team with multiple clear win conditions.
3. LOUD (W4: 2–0) paiN + Netshoes Miners
LOUD have gone 1–1 every single week of the split so far, and this just might be the week to change things. Sitting right in the middle of the league, LOUD have lost to teams above them, while soundly securing wins against teams below them. paiN Gaming and Netshoes Miners are both nearby, and could swing either way. It’s a chance to move up or down for LOUD here.
Just a year ago and this would have been a super-hype match-up for a top sport in the league. Fast forward to now, and both teams are looking to ensure they don’t fall to the lower end of the standings. A bit of a reunion for Robo and tinowns with their former team as well, and a victorious one for them as tinowns got to be the star of the show. DudsTheBoy and Ceos seem to have found the answer to Caitlyn/Lux as their Jhin/Karma pressed in and fully controlled their lane. Robo nullified Wizer top as well, giving Tay and tinowns full rein to run the middle of the map. Accelerated beyond all reasonable measure, tinowns was pumping out damage, unreasonable tanky, and with Realm Warp, omnipresent on the map. To paiN gaming, tinowns sent his regards.
Ugh… on a personal level, I hate double enchanter compositions (especially smite support meta), but on a more objective level, picking a smite support top into a scaling hyper-carry like Gwen just isn’t it. As if to spite me, LOUD still manage to pull out the win with a well-planned early game, maximizing the benefits of a support top and funnelling gold towards tinowns and DudsTheBoy. One of the problems in CBLOL is that teams can rarely play out clean games, and LOUD was no different. Despite the early lead, they made mistakes in the mid/late game, underestimating the Gwen and Jinx, giving over 2 Barons and an Elder. Things were getting real dicey for a second, but a bold backdoor from tinowns and DudsTheBoy against an Elder buffed Netshoes Miners barely eked out a win.
Say what you want about LOUD, but this team plays for content. Also, tinowns is an absolute beast on Ryze. The clutch wins this week put LOUD in the upper half of the standings currently, though whether they can maintain that is yet to be seen. LOUD is also now the only team in CBLOL to have shown the top smite support meta which has swept the rest of the world. It wasn’t the cleanest execution, but the early game rotations will definitely have to be on the minds of the rest of CBLOL.
3. RED Canids (W4: 1–1) Flamengo + INTZ
RED have been slipping in the last few weeks, regardless whether they win or lose. Their losses have gone to Liberty and FURIA, 2 of the strongest teams, but they’ve also beaten KaBuM!, who are currently considered the strongest performers. In their wins, things have looked precarious. In their losses, RED have still had moments of brilliance. I’m not quite sure where to put them just yet, but this week should be a nice breather, facing off against the lower end of the bracket. RED is also going to be putting Avenger in to flex their 6-man roster, and we’ll get a chance to get our first look of 2022 on Avenger.
What on League’s green rift did I just watch?! An interesting draft giving GUIGO Darius without teleport made this particular game high-risk, high reward. The gamble didn’t completely pan out, but ultimately proved to be a minor point as RED not only struggled in macro without teleport, but had some truly baffling fights. RED struggled to find engages as Aegis’ attempts at an Insec were denied by Gyeong, leaving RED struggling to get in range. The fight that broke the game came at around 29 minutes where RED abandoned their main carry and captain TitaN alone in the baron pit instead of finishing off the Baron. Losing TitaN and Baron, RED pretty much lost the game at that point as well.
After the shocking loss to Flamengo, RED Canids set out to redeem themselves in as explosive a fashion as possible, and INTZ just happened to find themselves in the cross-hairs. The draft itself wasn’t anything special, with RED Canids opting for a typical team-fight composition centred around Avenger’s Orianna. The game-play however, was on a whole different level. To put this in context, this was the fastest game of the split at 22:31. In the 22 and a half minutes, RED Canids got themselves 30 kills, and Avenger was right in the thick of things, going 13/2/11 and ending the game with a fully stacked Mejai’s. Turns out the RED in RED Canids comes from the blood of their enemies.
This week exemplifies the dichotomy of RED Canids in the regular season, and why I tend to discount their losses as limit testing. In their loss against Flamengo, there were a lot of preventable, unforced errors which make RED look like a below average team. Then they turn around and put down the fastest game of the split, one of the few times where a team just outclasses in every single role. We expected Avenger to be a good laner, and while Flamengo caught him off-guard, INTZ was everything we expected and more. Maybe after this reality check in Week 4, RED Canids might start stepping up a little more and actually look to return to the top.
6. Netshoes Miners (W4: 0–2) KaBuM! + LOUD
After a strong 3–0 start to the season, it’s been downhill from there as Netshoes Miners has now gone even with a 3 game losing streak. Things aren’t going to get easier this week as Netshoes Miners are facing the 1st place team KaBuM!, and the last stop before the lower ranks: LOUD. Interestingly, Netshoes Miners have opted to swap out their ADC Drop who’s been performing well for them, for their Academy ADC Celo who is completely new to CBLOL Academy this split. A bold move, and one I’m unsure was wise this particular week.
Despite the concerns I had with replacing Drop with Celo this week, Celo did a great job, and this loss had little to do with him. Netshoes Miners continued to lane well, and in the early game were trading completely evenly with KaBuM!. Croc, especially, did a great job out-pacing Wiz in both farm and pressure, making sure that Netshoes Miner’s lanes were in healthy shape. Things took a turn for the worse in the mid-game though, as the Miners attempted to hastily push their advantages, over-extending and giving up unfavourable trades. The moment the cracks showed, KaBuM! were all over them, punishing anyone who made a misstep. Throughout it all, Celo was able to fire from relative safety, but it wasn’t enough when Croc and Anyyy were forced out of fights before getting out all their damage.
Oh my goodness, what an insane banger of a game. Netshoes Miners pulled off a minor miracle this game and still… didn’t win it. Faced with the 1st top smite Janna of CBLOL, Netshoes Miners looked taken aback, falling behind early game to the fast rotations of LOUD. As we’ve come to expect from the Miners, their mental remained strong, and rather than falling apart, Netshoes Miners holed up and kept right on scaling, banking on the later team-fights. It was a rough 30 minutes, but the Miners successfully reached the state where DoRun and Celo looked unstoppable in front-to-back fights. What did it cost them? Their entire base. What did it net them? A Baron and an Elder Buff, a theoretical sure-win position. So what went wrong? How did Netshoes Miners lose with the better scaling, both major buffs at almost 40 minutes? Well, when I said that the stall cost them the entire base, I meant it. Rather than trying to fight against Netshoes Miners, LOUD sent their 2 carries to just back-door and win the game.
This week was a crying shame for Netshoes Miners considering how their games went. Celo slotted in seamlessly into the team, and I don’t think Drop would have changed much even if he were playing. You win some, you lose some, and this week, Netshoes Miners just lost some. With their losses this week, Netshoes Miner is now on a 5-game loss streak, and staring down the barrel of a 6-game loss streak as they face the #1 team FURIA to start next week.
6. paiN Gaming (W4: 1–1) LOUD + Rensga
Losing to INTZ last week was a bit of a shocker for fans of paiN, but when you consider how they’ve been playing… things might get worse yet. paiN have been looking rather lacklustre, with CarioK trying to drag everyone along. Individually, the lanes have been ok, but after laning, paiN Gaming continues to be plagued by the lethargy that cost them their second half of the split last year. Week 4 has paiN Gaming fighting to keep themselves afloat and away from the very bottom of the league.
The match against LOUD wasn’t just an important one for the standings. It was also a bit of a revenge or statement match against former teammates Robo and tinowns who had left during the off-season. Filled with a desire to prove themselves, paiN drafted an early game composition with Renekton, Xin Zhao, Zoe, Caitlyn and Lux, meaning that they had to smash the early game, or fade into obscurity. In the most painful of results, paiN not only lost the game, but they lost it in the early game, with LOUD drafting answers in every lane, and having better scaling to boot. To add insult to injury, the MVP of the game was tinowns, who popped off on the Ryze that paiN were once oh-so-familiar with.
Undeterred by their loss to LOUD, paiN Gaming went right back to the same style of draft, with early winning lanes across the board. This time, the plan went off with nary a hitch, getting a massive lead early and snowballing to a win. More specifically, Wizer and dyNquedo popped off in their respective lanes, and made sure that Rensga never had a lane they could play through. Trigo and Damage once again got out-pushed by a Jhin/Karma, but learning their lesson from the LOUD game, Trigo and Damage quickly left lane and rotated elsewhere to act as paiN’s structure demolition squad. It was rinse-and-repeat for this paiN team as they just set up for an objective, found a pick, and took turrets repeatedly.
Another new look for paiN, but one that I find risky, going all-in for the early game. Trigo and Damage are failing to impress m with this style, but Wizer, CarioK and dyNquedo seem to be benefiting. Ideally I’d like to see paiN switch Trigo and Damage to late-game insurance for a better balance, but against RED and Liberty next week… I don’t have the confidence that paiN can survive the early game.
8. Flamengo Esports (W4: 1–1) RED + Liberty
FLAMENGO GOT A WIN! It’s been a week, but I’m still hyped for this team. That said, Flamengo might be in for a rude awakening this week as they’re facing 2 of the stronger teams in the league. The odds are stacked against them, but Flamengo have never given up before, and sometimes miracles happen.
MIRACLES DO HAPPEN! An incredible win from Flamengo over RED Canids and a very well-deserved one. Tutsz had a crushing performance on the CBLOL-classic Zoe, single-handedly zoning off multiple members of RED. In addition to Tutsz’s MVP performance, huge praise to Flare and Gyeong as well, with Flare positioning flawlessly to avoid Aegis’ dives. Gyeong was the hidden MVP as well, with perfect Devours to deny any chance RED had of finding the important carries. Flamengo performed well above expectations, and I’m hoping this is them showing their real abilities, not just a flash in the pan.
Well that’s the end of my all-caps spree. Flamengo have been returned to grounded reality in rather rough fashion. Flamengo appear to have been caught off-guard by Liberty’s rapid assault, falling behind in tempo, always just a step behind through the early and mid-game. It is to Flamengo’s credit that they still managed to find multiple kills, a winning team-fight, both Heralds and even a Baron! However, a 10k gold deficit was a little too much to overcome, and while Flamengo found ways to try and grab objectives, they simply didn’t have an answer to the power Liberty had amassed earlier on. A valiant effort from Flamengo.
I know that I’ve been incredibly optimistic about Flamengo’s performance in their losing weeks, but I feel like this week in particular has validated my optimism. More than any loss before, Flamengo mounted an incredible defence against Liberty after falling so far behind. Even more impressively, they flat-out beat RED Canids! While Flare has been my focus on this Flamengo squad (and deservedly so), Tutsz has stepped up beyond my expectations, and the veteran presence in the mid has repercussion across the map. If Tutsz can maintain his form, Flamengo might be able to make a play-off run in the 2nd half of the Regular Season.
8. INTZ (W4: 0–2) Rensga + RED
It’s been a little hit-or-miss with this roster, but INTZ did look a little better last week, especially when they could get Kick on a global champion to back-up Yampi. They’re still looking a little weaker individually, and the teamwork is still a little shaky, so this week will be interesting, especially against Rensga.
Remember when I said INTZ looked good when they could get Kick on a global champion to back-up Yampi? Apparently neither did INTZ. That said, the draft wasn’t bad by any means, a very respectable team-fight composition. Instead, the problems INTZ faced were precisely the strengths they had last week, where Rensga simply moved faster, and had more people in all the early skirmishes, which quickly snow-balled into a gold lead that won them any fight with even numbers. INTZ just fell behind and never caught up.
Press F to pay respects for INTZ. I don’t think anybody expected this to happen, least of all INTZ. The game against RED made INTZ looked overwhelmingly outclassed in every role, but that really isn’t the case. Let’s not forget all of INTZ’s previous performances with decent laning and solid macro. They just didn’t get an opportunity to showcase any of that this game, with RED coming out of the gates swinging, never letting up the pressure. The Intrepids never got a chance to catch their breath and before anybody knew it, the game was over.
A distressing week for fans of INTZ, with 2 fairly quick losses. Not really much to say, maybe it was a stylistic mismatch, maybe a slight execution error. Either way, this is one of those weeks where you just go: GG, go next. Move on and don’t get hung up on it.
8. Rensga Esports (W4: 1–1) INTZ + paiN
Another team that has a bit of a struggle ahead of them, Rensga seems to have found a style they like: team-fighting. While they like team-fighting, Rensga has not necessarily found much success with this style, most recently dropping a game to the previously win-less Flamengo. If it didn’t work against Flamengo, it probably won’t work against INTZ and paiN, but then again, anything is possible in CBLOL.
It honestly wasn’t even that big a stretch for Rensga to beat INTZ, especially when they were willing to move away from the team-fighting style that wasn’t working for them last week. Rensga adopted the old adage of “if you can’t beat them, join them”, drafting a very INTZ-style composition. Surprise, surprise, it worked out, looking really good for the team. Goku and Minerva quickly snowballed out of control, buying time for Ayel to find some gorgeous flanks on INTZ’s back-line.
This one might have been a little bit of a draft gap, as Rensga Esports found themselves overwhelmed by paiN Gaming’s early game strategy. With 2 losing lanes, and a utility bot lane (Jhin/Karma) for Hades and Guard that goes mostly even, Rensga was banking on Goku scaling up to the late game. Late game never came though, as Goku found himself the focus of paiN’s ganks, not just from the jungle, but later on, even from the bot lane which were displaced by Hades and Guard. Even in the game, Rensga just never found a good go-button, with Ayel and Minerva unable to find their way into paiN’s back-line. Some poke, a pick, and someone gets popped, RIP Rensga.
Nothing too shocking from Rensga this week, the rotational composition against INTZ looked nice, and I’d love to see more of that. The Cowboys do have to watch out a little in the early game though, especially next week against LOUD and RED, who both saw an injection of energy this week in their games.
