League of Legends LCS preview: TSM vs. Clutch – the final gasp of TSM?
By Josh Tyler
Top lane
Sergen “Broken Blade” Çelik vs. Heo “Huni” Seung-hoon
For a player who gets called “reckless” as much as Huni, the guy is actually fairly impressive when it comes to his ability to get kills and not die. His 2.26 adjusted KDA is behind only Impact, Licorice, and Kumo (who only played four games for C9) and he has the second-best adjusted KP behind only V1per.
As an individual player and laner, Huni has always been a stud and 2019 Summer was no different. He put up the second-best gold and XP differentials at 10, along with a solid 3.1 CSD at 10. He also put up the fourth-highest adjusted DPM of any top laners (Impact, Solo, and Kumo topped him in the summer).
On the other hand, Broken Blade entered the summer riding high following a phenomenal first split that had me ranking him as the third-best LCS top laner. Since then, though, BB has been in a steady decline.
His KDA numbers aren’t awful (though he does average slightly more deaths per game than Huni) a big problem is his income. He earns slightly less gold per minute than the average top laner and a lot of that is due to the fact that he tends to end laning phase behind in gold and experience.
The two have very similar champion pools, but while Broken Blade has shown a willingness to take his pool deeper (he’s played 12 unique champions in summer, none more than three games), Huni has shown high proficiency on one signature pick, Rumble, that he has played in seven games this split. Both tend towards carries and given how strong Huni has been as a laner I’m inclined to believe that he will end up being the more impactful player in this series.
Advantage: Clutch