CBLOL 2022 Split 1 Week 5 Wrap-up

CBLoL 2022 Split 1 Week 5 Standings

1. FURIA Esports (7–3)
1. KaBuM! e-Sports (7–3)
1. Liberty (7–3)
1. LOUD (7–3)
1. RED Canids (7–3)
6. Netshoes Miners (5–5)
7. INTZ (3–7)
7. paiN Gaming (3–7)
9. Flamengo Esports (2–8)
9. Rensga (2–8)

1. FURIA Esports (W5: 0–2) Netshoes Miners + LOUD

The super team is starting to come together! Having beaten Liberty and KaBuM!, FURIA only have 1 last challenge to end out the first round robin strong: Netshoes Miners. The Miners have been in a slide though, so this should be doable. More interesting will be the rematch against LOUD, the only team to have beaten FURIA this split back in Week 1.

Never mind, I was completely, utterly wrong. Netshoes Miners might have been on a bit of a slide, but on this day, at this time, Netshoes Miners just made this one of the spiciest matches of the week. FURIA had everything they needed to win this game, a strong cohesive team-fight draft, a great early game (10–1 lead), and a 20 minute Baron. So how did they lose a game like this?! Well… it started with FURIA disrespecting the Netshoes Miners damage and composition, trying to split-push with Baron, causing a negative Baron power play. Instead of learning from their mistake, FURIA doubled down at the 2nd Baron, letting fNb and RedBert try to 2v5 when both teams were pretty much dead even. Not only were fNb and RedBert sacrificed for nought, but they lost Baron as well, and that should have been the end of things. However, FURIA would not stay down, and they fought their way back into one of the closest, most exciting games yet. 3rd Baron saw a bloodbath and an answering steal back from Ranger, seeing the opportunity to close, FURIA rushed into Netshoes Miners’ base to end, but fell just short as they were killed on the Nexus itself, just shy of the expected win.

There’s bad news and worse news. The bad news is that the FURIA vs LOUD re-match looked very different from Week 1. The worse news is that FURIA looked a lot worse. 2 kills, 16 deaths, 0 dragons secured, 14k gold down. These stats summarize the tragedy of FURIA, but fail to capture how they found themselves there. FURIA fell apart in every single position, but it wasn’t from laning, but from decision making. Every time FURIA looked to contest an objective, it felt like they did so desultorily, streaming in dribs and drabs, treating LOUD to an all-you-can-eat buffet. There’s really not much else to say, free win for LOUD.

Ranger, Netuno and RedBert might well be shaking in their boots right now. They might have left Flamengo, but the 2021 Flamengo 2nd half nightmare continues to haunt them. Random losses against weaker teams, baffling decision-making that throws away lane leads, that’s what we saw last year… and this week. FURIA still sit at 1st place because of their earlier efforts, but they need to quickly figure out what went wrong, and prevent it from happening again. They’re still a strong team, and their biggest enemy is themselves right now.

1. KaBuM! e-Sports (W5: 1–1) Flamengo + INTZ

Just losing by a single game, KaBuM! are still looking terrifying in 2nd place as they head towards an easier strength of schedule once again to start the 2nd half of the round robin. I’m hoping the loss to FURIA will spur them on to greater heights though, and where better to start than Flamengo and INTZ?

A great bounce back from last week, and a decisive game. KaBuM! went back to basics with a straightforward wombo-combo composition. Most interestingly, Parang has gone back to an old favourite: Rumble. Not only did the Rumble pick work great in the composition, but it did great as a counter-pick into the current meta favourite: Gwen. Wiz continued to be a forceful presence in the early game, and despite a messy start, still had a ton of impact. With top and jungle control, KaBuM! pressed the pace, forcing objectives.

Considering the success of the simple wombo-combo, I felt like KaBuM! might have made a slight mistake switching things up in their game against INTZ. The draft was still very solid, with a lot of dive tools, but I just don’t understand the Aphelios preference over Jinx, and the Jayce pick for Parang looked gorgeous in lane, but didn’t quite git with the rest of the composition. Worth noting as well, this wasn’t a Hullbreaker Jayce, so Parang was expected to contribute in the 5v5 more than the 1v1. To be fair, the game didn’t revolve around KaBuM!’s draft, but more around INTZ’s play-style, with Yampi and Kick just being omnipresent, getting their Jinx online. KaBuM!’s dive worked wonders, but the higher difficulty of execution came back to bite them as INTZ just capitalized on their global pressure.

Not the ideal start that KaBuM! were hoping for, but what could be more CBLOL-like than a 5-way tie for 1st place? The Ninjas are still looking pretty decent, and a loss here in the middle of the season is better than a critical loss in the play-offs. Furthermore, INTZ played really well, fully deserving of their win. I have little doubt we’ll see KaBuM! still near the top of the standings next week.

1. Liberty (W5: 2–0) INTZ + paiN

Liberty have cemented themselves in my mind as one of the strongest early game teams, with a strong transition into the mid-game. So far only 2 teams have been able to break their early game, and it’s little surprise that both those teams are at the top of the table. Yet Liberty has 3 losses, and it was another opening round loss to paiN Gaming which they’ll be seeking to revenge.

I had to double-check that this week was played on 12.3, as Krastyel made Corki look just as broken as he was back on 12.2. A very quiet start, which is unusual in CBLOL, but something that Liberty has traditionally done well with. As with quiet games, it’s usually just a build up to an incredibly volatile mid-lane, and this game was no different. Disamis was the catalyst to action, forcing engages and somehow surviving everything. Krastyel and Matsukaze got to freely pump out damage while INTZ was distracted by Disamis. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what won the game for Liberty, but from the way the game played out… INTZ couldn’t quite figure it out either.

An exciting game for Liberty fans, and a bit of a test of faith. Liberty looked a little taken aback by the ferocity of paiN Gaming swinging right out the gate. Kiari and Krastyel especially getting punished and pressured in their lanes. However, Liberty’s reputation as a disciplined team is rightfully deserved. The team did not panic, calmly ceding objectives and funnelling resources towards Matsukaze as their win condition. Krastyel started matching global pressure on Twisted Fate as well, enabling Kiari to win the split-push war. As the game went on, paiN Gaming started to fall off somewhat, and with pinpoint precision, Liberty turned the tides, winning the critical team-fights, securing both Barons and burying paiN Gaming with more gold and better scaling.

It’s hardly a surprise that Liberty won both their games this week, but it’s still good to see it happen even with all the other upsets happening to the top teams. Their stability and consistence has been rewarded with a tied 1st place (with 4 other teams), as well as pretty good prospects compared to the volatility of everyone else.

1. LOUD (W5: 2–0) Rensga + FURIA

LOUD had their ups-and-downs, but more recently, it’s been up for this team of veterans players. Specifically in Week 4, tinowns won MVP both games with stand-out performances which call back to his 2021 Split 1 performance. For Week 5, the other members will have to step up as well if they hope to take out the current leaders: FURIA.

tinowns isn’t missing a beat, with a 3rd straight MVP performance, he gives us Ahri’s 1st and only win in CBLOL! The early game was a little weaker for LOUD, but they were just saving their energy to explode. LOUD gave up every neutral objective before the 24 minute mark, trading them for kills and turrets instead. A risky proposition, but it paid off as the gold lead outweighed the dragon buffs allowing LOUD to peak at the right moment. In the quick span of 8 minutes starting at the 4th Dragon, LOUD picked up 14 kills, 2 dragons, a Baron, and the Rensga nexus.

Bloody hell, tinowns has no chill, and I am absolutely adoring it! Back in 2020, tinowns was feared for his Twisted Fate, and despite the nerfs on 12.3, he’s looking just as terrifying as ever. This game wasn’t a slow build-up that we’ve seen from LOUD in the last couple of games. As soon as objectives spawned, LOUD started moving together as a team with a clear plan: get to the objective first. A combination of FURIA playing a little sloppily and disrespectfully, combined with no hesitation from LOUD resulted in the perfect storm where LOUD could seemingly do no wrong.

Riding a 4 game win streak, LOUD have managed to fight their way into a 5-way 1st place tie, realizing the hopes of fans when they saw this star-studded line-up. Normally, this is where I’d be cautioning against getting too excited, especially when LOUD has a mix of teams they have to face. Week 6 sees RED and Flamengo, but with LOUD’s current momentum, they’re looking good enough to take down RED, even when RED has been on a bit of a streak of their own, and Flamengo are still trying to find themselves.

1. RED Canids (W5: 2–0) paiN + Rensga

With the wild ride RED Canids have been giving us, I’m simultaneously terrified and excited for Week 5. Terrified, because RED Canids have shown that they can throw massive leads, and excited, because RED has also shown that when they’re on fire, they can give us the fastest games of the split. Against paiN and Rensga, these should be easy wins, but we’ve said that before…

As Trajan said, “I thought Grevthar’s pool was weird, but Avenger’s saying: I got a weirder pool, trust me”. The 2nd Kog’Maw mid pick globally (OCE had the 1st one) and honestly, I loved the pick this game. With Guigo on Tryndamere, RED Canids just needed to enable Guigo to split-push and pick wave-clear in the other lanes. TitaN handshaked Aphelios for Trigo’s Jinx, and the Kog’Maw pick for Avenger had perfect wave clear, along with the ability to match range and damage with both Jinx and Ryze in the late game. The draft alone would have favoured RED over time, but Aegis and Guigo had no desire to leave anything to chance, as they popped off. Guigo dominated the top-lane as quickly as possible, while Aegis quickly became a menace on the map — farming more champions than objectives. Avenger, TitaN and Jojo did well, but realistically, this game was all about Guigo and Aegis as they pretty much ran this one.

Maybe it’s because we’re starting the 2nd round robin, but this week, RED aren’t playing around. Another beautiful draft coming through from RED, nothing too crazy here, signature Jinx for TitaN, Diana/Yone combo for Aegis/Avenger, ever-safe Camille for Guigo, and reliable engage/peel for Jojo. It’s comfort, it’s meta, it was a nice easy win. Things played out pretty much exactly as expected, a slower start to scale up, Aegis setting up for Avenger, and Titan cleaning house. Guigo had to die for RED’s weak early game, but still managed to remain relevant in spite of Rensga’s over-excited attention setting him behind 0/3/0 in lane.

Mirroring their last split, RED Canids seem to be starting to come online in the latter half of the season. Week 5 saw them facing lower ranked teams, but it’s more about the draft and execution. We saw some questionable drafts earlier on in the season, but both games this week had huge advantages coming out. While there were still some rough spots in the game-play, most of the errors were confined to the early game, where RED just needed to survive. Every single player had a highlight moment as well, especially Avenger who’s only played 3 games as of the end of this week. RED Canids looking strong and set to keep on scaling up.

6. Netshoes Miners (W5: 2–0) FURIA + Flamengo

Last week, Netshoes Miners pulled a bold move by swapping out Drop, who had been performing just fine, with Celo, a relative unknown. In all fairness, Celo didn’t look bad coming in, but Netshoes Miners still struggled against KaBuM! and LOUD, which surprised absolutely no one. Now on a 5 loss win streak, Netshoes Miners will be looking to break that streak this week… no matter the odds.

Netshoes never say die, as they once again pull off a massive upset over the top team in the league. From the very start, Netshoes Miners felt just a little bit lacking in the early skirmishes, causing them to fall behind in the early and mid-game. Things looked dire as FURIA found an incredibly early 1st Baron as well. Netshoes Miners remained cold as ice, preying on FURIA’s hype and momentary carelessness, fully utilizing their pick composition to punish FURIA’s ambitious Baron split-pushing to find kills and create a negative Baron power-play. Temporarily disorienting FURIA, Netshoes Miners quickly fired back, taking turrets, pushing lanes and equalizing things to set up for a hotly contested 2nd Baron. FURIA were allowed to start up the Baron, and perhaps once again overestimating themselves, they split to stop Netshoes Miners from contesting… which was exactly what Netshoes Miners wanted. Easily picking apart the screen that FURIA had set up, they quickly swarmed the Baron pit and secured themselves 2nd Baron and made good on the push to find themselves a lead as the game pushed towards the 40 minute mark. Though they had a lead, Netshoes Miners were fast finding out how FURIA claimed the top spot as FURIA managed to hold down the surging Miners. Things came to a head at the 3rd Baron as both teams knew this would be the objective to end the game, a quick flurry of trades saw Netshoes Miners get Croc rolling with resets. Armed with Baron, Netshoes Miners pressed for the jugular, but even in the very last minutes of the game, things were tense as FURIA attempted to base race Netshoes Miners and came within millimetres of accomplishing their goal. Netshoes Miners break their losing streak, and in the most dramatic way possible!

The Miners train continues to gain steam as they continue rolling over their opposition. A bit of a battle of newer bot-lanes, with Celo still being fairly new for Netshoes Miners and Kuri fresh this week for Flamengo. Netshoes Miners really pinched the ADC pool, with 4 bans levelled at that position, punishing the newer Flare/Kuri bot duo, but Celo wasn’t the huge carry this game. Instead, Anyyy put on a clinic with Ryze, dodging out on multiple ganks, ferrying his team to objectives, and being an unstoppable force in fights with both damage and tankiness. While it wasn’t the fastest game, this was a very controlled win for Netshoes Miners where they looked good in every role and every position. Clean cut win.

A big week for Netshoes Miners, especially the win over FURIA, and Netshoes Miners are about to re-enter the easy part of their schedule as well. During this period where Netshoes Miners can catch their breath, they’ll also have to take this time to figure out a way to beat the stronger teams as the win against FURIA was probably a little closer than they’d like. After all, the final goal isn’t just to make play-offs, but to actually win the whole league, and that means beating the top teams.

7. INTZ (W5: 1–1) Liberty + KaBuM!

INTZ had a bit of an unfortunate Week 4, where they lost a close match against Rensga, and got absolutely run over by a RED team on a rampage. Week 5 is looking even rougher, with both Liberty and KaBuM! waiting on the docket, it’s time for the Intrepids to live up to their name. The skill gap between teams in CBLOL is fairly narrow, so is it possible? Yes. Probable? Well…

Not with Liberty, at least. A nigh silent early game for both teams, with neither team willing to fully commit to any action. For Liberty, they had a pick composition, and were happy with quiet time to scale. INTZ had some decent scaling with Jinx, but with Hecarim, Orianna and Nautilus, really wanted to be the aggressors in the mid-game. Unfortunately, when the armistice was broken, it wasn’t INTZ forcing the action, but instead, INTZ found themselves sieged and shelled by the long-range artillery of Liberty. INTZ had tools to force engages, but today just wasn’t the day we got to see those tools used.

Maybe it’s a thing for INTZ now, but with the failure of the team-fight composition once again, INTZ fell back to the global pressure through Kick which has worked for them so well previously. Lo and behold, it worked again, with a massive win against 2nd place KaBuM!. Yampi and Kick seem to have developed better synergy, and it showed with a perfect level 6 Destiny from Kick to back-up Yampi on a bit of a forced gank. A single gank, but it was pretty much the story of the game, with Yampi and Kick popping up everywhere on the map, especially getting micaO ahead on the hyper-carry Jinx. Not every single play worked out, micaO lived up to (or died according to) his positional reputation, so the mid-game was way closer than it should have been. However, INTZ held all the cards, and it took quite a few tries, but they eventually found the pick they wanted.

The optimal game plan for INTZ seems to be further confirmed — play global comps with hyper-carries in side lanes. The full 5-man coordination still has some gaps, but on a smaller level, Kick and Yampi have started looking like a scary mid/jungle duo. Perhaps being 1-dimensional might make them easier to shut down, but a win is a win, and INTZ are still hovering just outside that 6th place, and a spot in the play-offs.

7. paiN Gaming (W5: 0–2) RED + Liberty

Even as some things change, others remain the same. paiN Gaming is no longer the powerhouse they were last year, but both RED and Liberty continue to reside in the upper half of the standings. I’ve started to give up hope on paiN, they’ve been a stereotypical middle of the pack team. They beat lower teams as expected, but haven’t shown the explosiveness to required challenge better teams. They’ve certainly got the names for it, and I’ll continue to watch with quiet hope, but realistic expectations.

Ok, I’m going to give paiN the benefit of the doubt on this one. The draft was solid, if nothing special, but what RED countered with absolutely caught paiN off-guard. Ideally, paiN was looking for macro pressure in the early game with Ryze for dyNquedo, allowing Trigo to scale up on Jinx to dominate later fights. However, RED managed to draft counters in both solo lanes, stomping Wizer in the 1v1, and causing dyNquedo to be unable to roam as much as he had hoped. Trigo and Damage still did their jobs and looked solid in team-fights, but those were far and few in-between as RED’s Guigo made the game all about split-push pressure with his unmatched Tryndamere. From behind, and forced to constantly rotate to deal with a split-push threat, paiN fell further and further behind.

HOW DID paiN LOSE THIS?! It’s precisely games like this that cause me to lose faith in paiN. A stellar early game for paiN, with dyNquedo, CarioK and Trigo all getting massive leads over their counter-parts. Wizer was a little behind in the top lane, but it was balanced by assists and turret plates. With a 2.5k gold lead before the 14 minute mark, primed to take outer turrets, paiN looked like they were living up to their potential. What I forgot, was that potential works both ways, and there’s potential to pop off, and potential to throw. paiN showed their pop off potential early, and showed us their throw potential later. dyNquedo’s Realm Warps became non-existent after laning phase, Trigo on the Caitlyn started to fall off, and Wizer’s split-pushing backfired immensely as he over-extended with no back up. Truly a paiN-ful game.

paiN Gaming has consistently struggled as a team to be consistent. They have flashes of brilliance, but it’s always a question of when, and how badly are they going to throw. This might have worked in 2021 Split 1, but teams have levelled up since, and CBLOL knows how to punish mistakes… as we saw this week. paiN are still in 7th place, and they did face 2 strong teams this week, but at this rate… I’m not confident they’ll find any wins against KaBuM! and Netshoes Miners next week either.

9. Flamengo Esports (W5: 0–2) KaBuM! +Netshoes Miners

The boys in red and black seem to have found a bit of their groove, going 1–1 in the last 2 weeks. A lot of this has to do with Tutsz popping off, leveraging his experience to find leads for Flamengo. asta and Gyeong have been able to capitalize on Tutsz’s leads to great effect as well. Which makes Kuri’s substitution in Week 5 a bit of a question mark. It’s not the first roster change in CBLOL, and for the most part, the changes have all worked out fairly well, so I’m looking forward to seeing what this new Korean import can do.

First glance at Kuri was somewhat underwhelming, although his aggression in lane did net Flamengo first blood. Flare and Kuri weren’t the problem at all, they had some of the better performances this game. Instead, the issue was on Boal and asta, who found themselves falling far behind their counterparts. Boal got counter-picked and punished all game long. asta seemed to slip back to his old ways as he got first blood, then pulled a vanishing act, leaving his lanes in the lurch. Not only did asta struggle to have early ganks as a Jarvan IV, but he also failed to farm up any meaningful advantage. Falling behind with a team-fight composition, Flamengo never found a way to pick a fight that favoured them, and it was a pretty open-and-shut case.

Netshoes Miners were just mean with the draft. Recognizing that Kuri is new to CBLOL, and likely didn’t have enough time to fully synergize with Flare, Netshoes Miners threw 4 ADC bans at Flare to further exacerbate matters. To Flare and Kuri’s credit, it didn’t really work and Flare/Kuri did well in their lane. Unfortunately asta and Tutsz did not find the same level of success as asta found any early ganks (which I appreciate) read in advance by Croc. Flamengo’s composition needed to get an early lead, and while they didn’t lose the early game, they did not get the lead. Eventually, they just fell behind, and gracefully fell against the big purple train.

Whether they played Kuri or Gyeong, the result would have been the same. This week was more about asta struggling to have an impact, which is a bit of repeating motif at this point. Especially on early ganking junglers like Jarvan IV or Xin Zhao, asta needs to force more fights early or just get out-scaled. Alternatively, someone else on Flamengo will have to pick up the slack, doing more than their fair share, and absolutely crushing their match-up. If not, the 2nd half of the Regular Season is going to look an awful lot like the 1st half…

9. Rensga Esports (W5: 0–2) LOUD + RED

A bit of hope for Rensga fans in their inspired win over INTZ last week, with a strong understanding of how to utilize early global pressure when they found a bit of a lane lead. Sadly things didn’t quite translate against paiN who don’t usually lose lane. Things are looking even tougher this week as LOUD has looked even stronger than paiN in laning, and RED just played the fastest win of the season against similarly placed INTZ.

Rensga continues their slide into oblivion this game. It started pretty decently as well, with Minerva getting every single Herald and Dragon prior to the 20 minute mark. Goku managed to do pretty decently as well, finding some picks and landing some good poke. Tragically, that’s where the good news ended. Ayel got bullied, the sacrifice for Rensga’s objective control. Hades and Guard had a good lane, but failed to capitalize and materialize a significant lead. In the mid-game, Rensga just seemed a little late to each fight, getting caught in multiple choke points. With the early and mid-game performance, there simply wasn’t a late game for Rensga.

The game against RED felt rather similar to the game against LOUD. Instead of sacrificing lanes for objectives, Rensga made it up to Ayel by focusing that top lane, which still led to them retaining full Herald control. Hades and Guard got a lot of 2v1 time and managed to take first turret without any Herald help either. Even with kills, Heralds, turrets and plates favouring Rensga, it never really felt like they were in control. The gold lead was only around 2k at the peak, and the ticking time bomb of RED Canids’ late game scaling was ever looming. Rensga’s execution and reset condition was highly plausible, but never quite came through for them. Both compositions had extremely high damage, and RED Canids just seemed to pull the trigger first, taking out Ayel and Minerva to stop the resets from even being an option.

Rumour has it that Rensga might be blowing up their roster after this week, and given the lack of results, I can understand why. It felt like this team was on the cusp of coming together, but never quite found the synergy, with Week 5 being one of the best examples of this. There’s still a lot of untapped potential here, so I look forward to seeing what changes get made, and who this organization is looking to play through.