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

Prediction

These two teams are so evenly matched, anyone who isn’t predicting a 3-2 series, either way, is underestimating their loser pick. While CLG owns the head-to-head match-ups in every position except jungle, those leads are not massive with the exception of perhaps ADC. Even then, I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if veteran Sneaky re-emerges to elevate his level of play now that the games really matter.

As teams, I would say CLG is slightly favored in the early game, while C9 is pretty heavily favored in the mid-to-late game stage. Because of these stylistic differences, this series could very well come down to which team has the better draft.

Despite beating OpTic last week, I was thoroughly unimpressed with CLG’s drafts, giving up a lot of value to OpTic when they were on red side (leaving up Aatrox, one of Dhokla‘s strongest champions) while not getting a lot of value themselves (first-picking Azir with Corki still up and they could have secured Jarvan for Wiggily).

Facing Reaperd, one of the best coaches in LCS history, they won’t be able to make the same mistakes or they’ll get punished. I fear that might be exactly what happens, as they try to make sure PoE and Wiggily are on some of their more comfortable picks (Orianna/Syndra/Azir and Jarvan/Sejuani, respectively). It could be the difference in one game, which I think will be the margin in this series.

Prediction: 3-2 Cloud9

The LCS Summer Playoffs resume with the quarterfinal match between CLG and Cloud airing at on August 17 at 5 PM EST on Twitch.tv/Riotgames