CBLOL 2022 Split 1 Week 9 Wrap-up

CBLoL 2022 Split 1 Week 9 Standings

Qualified for Playoffs:
1. KaBuM! e-Sports (13–5)
2. FURIA Esports (12–6)
3. RED Canids (11–7)
4. paiN Gaming (10–8)
5. Netshoes Miners (10–8)
6. Liberty (10–8)

DNQ:
7. LOUD (10–8)
8. Rensga (6–12)
9. Flamengo Esports (5–13)
10. INTZ (3–15)

1. KaBuM! e-Sports (W9: 2–0) FURIA + Flamengo

KaBuM! have steadily climbed the ranks and find themselves at the top of the table. The road to the top was somewhat rocky though, with a recent loss to Netshoes Miners just last week. While KaBuM! has the highest skill ceiling of all teams, they are also rather inconsistent, and tend to give up macro advantages in favour or immediate kills, which makes the match against FURIA a complete toss-up.

Even as I speak of KaBuM!’s inconsistency, it was FURIA’s skill floor which was showcased in this game. FURIA kind of gave free kills and control of the Rift to KaBuM!, but the Ninjas really took it and run off with it. Parang and Disave especially took advantage of any space they could get to apply global pressure and to look for fights. Hauz struggled the hardest in the early game, but once he picked up a couple of items, Hauz started diving into the middle of FURIA causing chaos and allowing the rest of KaBuM! To easily follow up with a more proper engage. A combination of enemy mistakes and their own strengths, but KaBuM! looked in great form this game.

If the top of the table match against FURIA required some mistakes from FURIA, the match against Flamengo most certainly did not. Wiz got his patented Lee Sin again, and that’s pretty much all the needed to be said. Perhaps a small foot note that Hauz struggled disproportionately to the rest of the team, but other than that, huge wins across the board for KaBuM!.

I’ve said it before: KaBuM! has the highest skill ceiling of any CBLOL team, and it looks like they’re hitting it at the perfect time. If they continue riding this high, it’s very possible they make finals without breaking a sweat. Wiz on Lee Sin is just illegal and needs a perma-ban. Parang, Scuro and Disave have been doing incredibly well, winning their lanes and backing up Wiz on his adventures. Hauz has been a little quiet in the early game, but if he gets to scale up to the late game uncontested, teams need to watch out. Best of all, KaBuM! have probably shown the least amount of throws of the playoff teams in the 2nd half, and while that doesn’t sound amazing… it is incredible here in CBLOL.

2. FURIA Esports (W9: 1–1) KaBuM! + Netshoes Miners

Coming into the last week of the regular season tied 1st with KaBuM!, the CBLOL super team honestly doesn’t have much to lose. However, they do have something to win — pride, as they have a shot to take sole 1st place. While most of FURIA has been really stepping up, Ranger has struggled in the last couple of games to be the engage that the team needs. With not much to lose, it’s a perfect opportunity for Ranger to take some risks and re-capture that killer instinct.

A battle of the top of the table should have been epic and a feast for the eyes. Instead, this game turned into a bit of puzzler as FURIA gave up the early Zeri, only to pick a Kai’Sa for Netuno which got out-ranged incredibly quickly. Instead, they prioritized Ahri for Envy, which worked to a limited degree. Envy and fNb did well in lane, but FURIA struggled to engage. Ranger often throwing himself into fights, but with no one following up, it just made Ranger look like he was int’ing. Against another top team, you only get limited mistakes, and KaBuM! quickly punished and scaled up to a point where a come-back became impossible for FURIA.

Honestly, this match doesn’t mean much for FURIA in terms of playoff implications, but for the super-team, FURIA needed to prove that they could finish the season off strong. It’s hard to call this a strong game for FURIA, as their early game was tough to watch. fNb got bullied by Croc and DoRun, with repeated ganks to that top side. To make things worse, FURIA lost 2 back-to-back fights at Herald (for the same Herald), which put Netshoes Miners up almost 5k gold. But FURIA showed their strong mental states, and somehow held on against the odds. Their mental fortitude proved stronger yet again as Netshoes Miners took some risks around the Baron, allowing FURIA to calmly stroll in and find tons of kills to even the game. If they could survive from behind, being on even footing finally allowed FURIA to spread their wings. fNb got his revenge as his Gwen scaled up, while Envy and Netuno looked like demons unleashing all hell upon Netshoes Miners. They were losing for 20 minutes, but it only took about 10 minutes for FURIA to turn the tides.

2nd place doesn’t sound that impressive, but the top 3 teams are incredibly close in terms of skill, and while FURIA has some questionable losses, their ability to make comebacks is looking unmatched. 2nd place does mean that FURIA will not get their pick of opponents in the 1st round of playoffs, and they’ll be up against the surging paiN Gaming. It’s worth noting that FURIA won both their games against paiN during the regular season, but that’s still going to be a titanic match-up that might surprise.

3. RED Canids (W9: 1–1) INTZ + paiN

A bit of a shocker for RED Canids last week, where they went 0–2 against FURIA and Flamengo. Thankfully, with the lead they’ve built up through the regular season, RED Canids are still guaranteed a top 4 finish. The only question for standings is whether they can move up to 1st if KaBuM! can beat FURIA, and if RED can speed up their wins. RED Canids have been playing rather slow, and questions have been arising due to their slackening early game. Perhaps to silence those questions, RED will be utilizing Grevthar instead this week, and we’ve seen Grevthar in play-off time before.

I’m getting real worried for RED right about now. The return of Grevthar did not miraculously fix their problems, and this game was way closer than it probably should have been considering their standings. Aegis did a great job this series, and was the one consistently good performer for RED. TitaN and Jojo really struggled throughout the early game, and it was only in the last 10 minutes that they stepped up as a duo. Guigo and Grevthar were mediocre, neither having early pressure. They did, however, have some clutch plays which helped extend the game and keep them from losing. Ultimately, rather than saying RED won this game, it would be more accurate to say INTZ lost it, as RED punished mistakes from INTZ.

Unlike INTZ, paiN Gaming aren’t a team to let their opponents back into the game, so RED had to take the early lead and never let go. They managed to achieve half of that, with Aegis, Jojo and TitaN managing to pick up early kills in the side lanes. Regrettably, that was about the only good news that RED Canids had this game. Grevthar failed to control dyNquedo in any meaningful way, and while Aegis picked up early kills on Wizer, Guigo struggled in the 1v1 and was completely unable to handle Wizer. To make things worse, TitaN’s Xayah worked great in lane, but simply could not fight forward, only looking comfortable when retreating backwards from threats. By itself, it’s a rough game to move on from, but in context of their last few weeks… a worrying sign for the reigning champions.

RED Canids are now 2–4 in the last 4 weeks of the regular season, and have looked questionable at best. It appears that KaBuM! would agree as they have chosen to play RED and avoid paiN instead for the 1st round of playoffs. However, RED has been here before, where they were the 6th seed in 2021 Split 2, and they managed to win it all then. While the entire team has been struggling in the early game, all it takes is for Grevthar to get back on his Kled, or for Guigo to pop off. TitaN has been solid in spite of the losses they’ve racked up, and he’s definitely one of the more clutch players in CBLOL. With everyone doubting them and the odds stacked against them, RED Canids are in their comfort zone, and it’s time they step up to defend their title.

4. paiN Gaming (W9: 2–0) Rensga + RED

The paiN train is chugging along strong with a 3 win streak going, but this is where the going gets incredibly tough, with Rensga looking better each week, and needing everything to go perfect for their perfect storm to make playoffs, Rensga is desperate. RED might be slipping, but they’re still a top contender, and paiN have not looked great against top teams all split. paiN themselves have looked more coordinated than ever, and with Wizer, Trigo and Damage holding down the fort, CarioK and dyNquedo have found themselves a lot more room to make plays and pop-off.

A strong start to a critical weekend, paiN are coming into this fully prepared and it’s showing. The early game was a little quiet, with everyone just looking to farm up. Wizer got focused down in lane, with the enemy team sending multiple ganks his way. However, Wizer showed his patience, and soaked all the pressure, while still remaining relevant. This allowed dyNquedo to slowly grow a lead, which combined with the slow scaling of Goku’s mid-lane Kai’Sa, gave paiN a window of opportunity in the mid-game, which they did not hesitate to take. Led by dyNquedo, paiN forced fight around the mid-game objectives, getting Trigo disgustingly far ahead. With both carries online, it was but a simple matter for paiN to close it out, and knock Rensga out of playoff contention.

LET’S PAIN’ING GOOOOO!!! Not that I’ve got my inner fan-boy out of the way, paiN looked absolutely incredible this game. Wizer has been looking better and better each weak, but this has looked the best yet. Of course this wasn’t just the Wizer show, as every single player stepped up on paiN, and it certainly wasn’t painless either, as RED started the game strong, punishing in pretty much every lane. CarioK, in particular, got out-paced and out-farmed early, but he managed to make Xin Zhao look OP as he continued to dive deep behind enemy lines and somehow get out alive. After the 15 minutes mark, this game just looked like the paiN show.

This is amazing, from not having secured a playoff spot to making it to 4th and the upper bracket, you can never count paiN out! Right now, if any team is going to be able to take down KaBuM!, it’s feeling like paiN. Perhaps because KaBuM! is thinking likewise, they chose RED, leaving paiN to face off against FURIA in the 1st round of the playoffs instead. Traditionally, paiN Gaming have always excelled in the playoffs, and considering what we’ve been seeing from them in the last couple of weeks, I’m inclined to trust them again.

5. Netshoes Miners (W9: 1–1) LOUD + FURIA

The big purple Miners train is still chugging along, and they had massive wins last week over Liberty and KaBuM! to put a little bit of a buffer between them and 6th place, while also putting them in contention for 4th place! Even as Croc has been stealing the show along with his Korean partner DoRun, Anyyy has been stepping up quite a lot as well to find some big upsets. Suspended between 4th and 6th, Netshoes Miners have 2 critical match-ups, where a win against LOUD might be all they need to make 4th, but losses to both LOUD and FURIA might actually see them potentially being eliminated…

Not today! Netshoes Miners pull out the huge win against LOUD, and they did it in style. Once again with the signature aggression, Croc went invading right at level 1 and not only stole away Tay’s blue buff, but managed to find 1st blood as well. It cost Croc his life, but it cost LOUD their jungler, blue buff, and both their solo laners laning phases. Quickly capitalizing on that, Anyyy started permanently shoving mid-lane, daring Tay to try and respond. DoRun took it one step further, finding kills on Robo with the help of Croc. Celo and Hawk didn’t have to do much in laning phase, but they showed up and team-fights, and Hawk found some key hooks to force fights. It sounds easy, but Netshoes Miners really knew how to push the pace, and though it took slightly more than 30 minutes, it was 30 minutes of Netshoes Miners firmly in the driver’s seat, taking the safe route.

How did Netshoes Miners lose this one?! Croc and DoRun continued the Korean dominance of the Miners, going a combined 9/2/4 in the first 14 minutes. With a 5k gold lead, and Jinx for Celo, the Miners were primed to take it all. However, FURIA isn’t the super-team for no reason, as they found a series of illegal team-fights, critically picking off DoRun and Croc at the start of the fights. Despite having a Jinx, with all the gold sitting on DoRun and Croc, the Miners were unable to fire back when the Koreans were taken out early. As the gold evened out, FURIA just looked better playing as 5, and Netshoes Miners somehow lost the massive lead they built up, and eventually the game.

While it wasn’t shocking that Netshoes Miners lost their game against FURIA, it still hurts as the Miners went from contesting 4th place, to joining the madness in the middle of the pack. Netshoes Miners tend to play fast in general, so they were never really at risk of getting eliminated from playoffs. Instead, they find themselves falling to 5th place instead, having to start from the loser’s bracket, with no 2nd chances. Even though Netshoes Miners won’t have much of a margin for error in the playoffs, they’ve shown that on a good day, they can beat any team, so if anyone is going to make a miracle run… my money’s on Netshoes Miners to pull it off.

6. Liberty (W9: 2–0) Flamengo + INTZ

Oh how the mighty have fallen. From a finalist in 2021, Liberty are now once again locked into mortal combat against paiN Gaming, but in very different circumstances. Locked in a dead heat against paiN Gaming, Liberty either need 1 more win than paiN, or they need to win faster to lower their average win time. Given how Liberty have been playing with a very slow early mid-game… it’s more likely they achieve the former than the latter. The good news for Liberty is that their remaining matches are up against some of the lower ranked teams, and more importantly, Flamengo are rotating up substitutes to give them some stage experience, so… surely Liberty won’t drop a game, right?

An expected win considering the circumstances, and with a final scoreline of 15–4, there really shouldn’t be too much to complain about. Every lane won fairly handily, with Disamis in particular having a great game. Kiari and Krastyel steadily won their lane and pressured out their opponents, while Matsukaze and Wos didn’t have the best showing in lane, but excelled in the team-fights. A good showing, but marred partially by the fact that Flamengo was running substitutes, and that Liberty still sat back and waited for the mid-game, which is a strategy that has backfired against stronger or equal teams.

The very last match of the Split 1 regular season for Liberty was not an equal one. For starters, INTZ had rather given up, with no stakes regardless of win or loss. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Liberty were desperate to pull out a win, and a fast one to avoid losing a tie-breaker for the 6th place. With those sort of goals, Liberty could not afford to sit back and scale anymore. Rising to the occasion, Disamis made tracks all around the rift, quickly snowballing Kiari which secured not only top priority but quickly enable Krastyel to control mid as well. The straw that broke the camel’s back came from the bot lane, where Matsukaze and Wos found kills with no additional help from the rest of the team. With every lane winning, against INTZ’s lane-centric composition, Liberty exploded into the mid-game with a vengeance.

Good thing for Liberty that they won as quick as they did too, because at the end of the day, it was a 4-way tie for 4th to 7th place, all teams involved had a 1–1 head-to-head, which meant that average winning game time determined everything. Liberty barely eked into the playoffs over LOUD. Starting in the lower bracket, Liberty will have to step it up as they have no lower bracket to fall into should they lose a series. Is it possible? Well… anything is, but Liberty as they are right now, are not looking hopeful for the playoffs.

7. LOUD (W9: 1–1) Netshoes Miners + Rensga

They’re hot then they’re cold, they’re yes then they’re no. LOUD has been all over the map in recent weeks, and while we joke that they play for content, they’ve managed to put themselves in a rough spot, where a loss to Netshoes Miners this week might see them start the playoffs in the lower bracket. LOUD has seemingly lived and died by tinowns’ play, and while I do believe tinowns can clutch up, I would like for LOUD to have another player step up to share the pressure.

My goodness was this a rough one to watch for LOUD fans. The draft looked so good as Tay got the currently highly coveted Hecarim in the jungle, tinowns got his renowned Twisted Fate, and DudsTheBoy/Ceos got a strong power duo of Aphelios/Leona without a Zeri or Jinx to answer. With a draft like that, this banger for 4th place should have been in LOUD’s favour, or at least very close. It wouldn’t be CBLOL if everything went to plan, and instead, Tay ended up giving up an early 1st bloody with an extended level 1 duel to Croc, which not only set him behind, but saw him getting 3-camped. It also ended up drawing in tinowns and Robo to sacrifice an entire early wave which completely shafted the entirety of the top side. Long story short, LOUD simply never recovered, and this ended up being rather one-sided from a level 1 gone wrong.

Well… I’m not sure I call this a win for LOUD here. They won the match, but they lost the war, as LOUD found themselves in a 4 way tie for 4th to 7th place which would be resolved by fastest average win time. LOUD not only needed to win this, but they needed to win it fast. They didn’t get sucked into the trap of picking an early game draft, but they did pick Volibear for Tay for early ganks, and to enable tinowns on Ahri to pop off early. To a certain extent, LOUD did find early success, but the pressure to win the time attack definitely showed as LOUD took risky plays to try and speed up the game. It actually worked early on, but as they got closer and closer to the critical mid-game, any sort of mistake on LOUD’s part was punished, and Rensga managed to stall out in their base for about 15 minutes. It should have been a sub-30 minute win, but the final game time was a shocking 40:08. It’s to LOUD’s credit they won, but Rensga’s that it took forever.

It says a lot that LOUD failed to make it into playoffs this year. The roster is by no means weak, and at the start of the season, it was highly lauded alongside the super-team FURIA. LOUD never felt like they had a bad losing streak or slump, but likewise, even in their winning streak, it never felt like LOUD were particularly dominant. Individual players stepped up at various times, but this Split was simply too competitive. Every team in CBLOL were growing at such a rapid pace, and towards the end, LOUD just failed to put themselves ahead of the pack. In terms of wins, LOUD were fine, it just came down to winning game times and LOUD just happened to be the slowest of a competitive mid-pack.

8. Rensga Esports (W9: 0–2) paiN + LOUD

There’s still a tiny flicker of hope for the Cowboys, and I’m not going to lie, I’m filled with regret that Rensga are in this position. If they had this roster from the start, Rensga could very well have made playoffs. Trap continues to be a monster that other teams haven’t quite figured out. NinjaKiwi and Mocha have looked completely at home in a region filled with strong bot-lane duos. However, none of that matters, as Rensga now need to win both their games, and need both paiN and Liberty to lose all their remaining matches. It all starts with the head-to-head match against paiN, where the loser gets eliminated.

And just like that, the last little bit of hope was mercilessly extinguished. Rensga looked a little caught up with the new Kai’Sa tech which Faker popularized recently. A slightly disjointed draft, with Trap/Minerva going for the Yasuo/Diana combination, but there was little follow-up, with Goku opting AP Kai’Sa, and NinjaKiwi for the independent Ezreal pick. That’s not to say this composition couldn’t work, but it would require time for all of them to scale, followed by Goku/NinjaKiwi poking down first, followed by Minerva/Trap going all-in after. Instead, we saw Minerva camp Trap early to get a lead, which perhaps overly emboldened Trap to try and force plays. Minerva and Trap ended up initiating fights which created 2v5 situations where Goku and NinjaKiwi were unable to follow up. While the individual plays looked good, the compositional disconnect really hurt Rensga in this game.

As such, Rensga are going into their final match of Split 1 with nothing to lose, and all hell to wreak on their final opponents: LOUD. If Rensga won this, they would eliminate LOUD, but if they even stall it out, it could (and did) cost LOUD a playoff spot. With the stakes established, Rensga played towards those conditions. They didn’t win it, but they made it a darned close fight. Trap got both his Yone and Yasuo banned out, but he still had a strong performance on Jayce, proving he’s not just a 2-trick. NinjaKiwi had some epic moments on Zeri as well, kiting out LOUD repeatedly in 1v5 situations. As good as NinjaKiwi played though, DudsTheBoy was on fire, and the ADC diff proved to be enough to win… Still, Rensga got the final laugh, as they managed to drag the game long enough that LOUD failed to qualify for playoffs.

Even when they’re out, Rensga refuse to stay down, and I love them for it. Trap, NinjaKiwi and Minerva fought to the bitter end and took their pound of flesh with their dying breaths. All theatrics aside, Rensga as an organization definitely had some issues this split. Having to overhaul 60% of your roster mid-split is not a good sign. Even after the changes, while Minerva seemed to catch a 2nd wind, NinjaKiwi proved his CBLOL worth, and Trap performed incredibly well, I’m still not sure if Rensga could win it all. The new roster probably could have made play-offs, but their losses to paiN and LOUD still make them rather unstable. I hope to see this roster get to play a full split together, and at the very least, this Rensga roster was an absolute blast to watch.

9. Flamengo Esports (W9: 0–2) Liberty + KaBuM!

Having been eliminated from the playoff running last week, Flamengo have started to look towards next split and the off-season. Rather than trying to play spoiler and mess up other teams, Flamengo are bringing in Mito, asta and Gyeong back to get some stage experience at the CBLOL level. While asta and Gyeong have been here before, they didn’t have the best showing, and should be looking to make aggressive plays, even at the risk of things backfiring. As for Mito? Never seen him before, but looking forward to seeing what he has, since he hasn’t played a single game in Academy either.

If you just look at the scoreboard, this game looked like an absolute beat down for Flamengo. With context though, this actually wasn’t that bad. As mentioned prior, Flamengo rotated out players for stage experience, and while the end result was rough to say the least, there were bright points. Flare and Tutsz continued to look independently proficient. Even though Mito didn’t exactly stand out, he didn’t feed and provided expected utility. Gyeong still looked a little weaker, but that’s somewhat to be expected on an engage tank on the losing team. asta proved to be a pleasant surprise though, as he dropped his previously timid approach and tried to force some risky plays. Most of it didn’t work out, but the idea was there, and it’s a big step in the right direction.

It’s only the 2nd showing for this particular iteration of the roster, so it’s little to no surprise that this game played out fairly similarly. Flare and asta continued to impress, but Tutsz lacklustre performance was a tad bit disappointing. KaBuM! was definitely a tougher opponent than Liberty, and it showed as Mito in particular got punished. Basically, Flamengo got out-classed in top and jungle which quickly spread to the rest of the map.

This last week of the regular season is not at all reflective of how Flamengo have looked. Instead, I would rather remember the Boal, Sting, Tutsz, Flare and Kuri roster that took games off the best teams in the league. There’s a lot of potential on this team, and I would love to see them continue sticking together. Flare and Kuri especially have stood out to me as players that Flamengo can really play around, and if asta can maintain this recent growth in pro-activity, I could see him stepping up as a starter again.

10. INTZ (W9: 0–2) RED + Liberty

While everyone else is worried about wins and seeding, to INTZ, this is just another week where they’re still trying to figure out how they can make things work. Honestly nothing new here, so let’s just see if they can throw a wrench into the works. RED is sitting pretty, but beating Liberty could completely mess up their plans.

Axeman87 said it best on the CBLOL English broadcast: “If you need a team to get you to the late game reliably, you pick INTZ 100% of the time. If you need a team to win the late game, you pick anybody but”. It’s a savage indictment of INTZ, but after watching this game, I completely understand where he’s coming from. INTZ played this game early incredibly well. Somehow Kick on a global champion just seems to buff the entire team, as all of INTZ stepped up. Yampi and Decoy had a field day with their roaming and ganks, and once micaO got ahead, he set up tons of low health targets for Yampi to reset on. With the way the game was going, it should have been easy for INTZ to close out. Tyrin ended up being the liability this game, as his Akali began positioning in odd ways, trying to initiate without the rest of the team being in place. While INTZ was ahead, they weren’t ahead enough to win subsequent fights 4v5. It was INTZ’s game to win, and likewise, it was their game to lose (which they did).

I’m not sure if INTZ is trying to brute force the early game, or if they were looking to try and drag out the game to mess up Liberty’s tie-breaking odds, but either way… it didn’t succeed. Despite drafting strong lanes with Irelia, Syndra and Lucian, INTZ got completely stomped in the early game. To INTZ’s credit, they did try and get some early ganks going to generate action, but Liberty has been trying to be a little proactive themselves, so it came down to whichever side executed better. Rough as it might be, INTZ proved to be slightly weaker.

It’s been a long and rough season for INTZ, with high hopes for their OCE support import Decoy being dashed at every turn. I applaud INTZ for keeping this roster together throughout the entire season, but with their 2022 Split 1 last place finish, I would be surprised if we didn’t see some roster changes going into Split 2.