League of Legends LCS semifinal preview Cloud9 vs. CLG – perfectly balanced

Middle

Yasin “Nisqy” Dinçer vs. Tristan “PowerOfEvil” Schrage

For everyone out there putting Nisqy, Crown, Jensen, and (inexplicably) Bjergsen up there as the best mid laners in the LCS, PowerofEvil is the guy I think gets most overlooked. Much like Svenskeren for C9, CLG’s mid laner doesn’t excel in any one area (though he does lead all mid laners in gold per minute, both raw and adjusted) but he also has almost no weak points.

Despite having a reputation for playing a lot of odd picks, PoE has actually played fairly standard in the summer to good results. With three games each on Azir, Corki, and Leblanc, he has performed exceptionally on his most-played champions (Leblanc being the only questionable one).

Facing him down on the other side, Nisqy has shown his ability to play a lot of unique champions. He’s played seven total champions including Veigar, Qiyana, Irelia, and Vladimir with decent results.

Stat-wise, Nisqy has the distinction of having the highest adjusted KDA among mid laners at an impressive 4.31. Combined with the second-best aKDA of 109.7% and the best laning stats in his position (GD/XPD/CSD at 10 of 321/19/0.7), Nisqy is a legitimate threat to carry games. The only reason I don’t give him more credit, though, is that he tends not to output as much damage as the average mid laner, which means his team is forced to lean a bit more heavily on their ADC for production, which is problematic (more on that later).

Advantage: CLG