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League of Legends: Team Liquid vs Clutch Gaming LCS semi-final preview

By Shay Coleman

League of Legends. Photo courtesy of Riot Games.
League of Legends. Photo courtesy of Riot Games. /
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OAKLAND, CA – SEPTEMBER 09: Xmithie celebrates with the winner’s trophy after defeating Cloud9 3-0 in the 2018 North American League of Legends Championship Series Summer Finals at ORACLE Arena on September 9, 2018, in Oakland, California. (Photo by Robert Reiners/Getty Images)
OAKLAND, CA – SEPTEMBER 09: Xmithie celebrates with the winner’s trophy after defeating Cloud9 3-0 in the 2018 North American League of Legends Championship Series Summer Finals at ORACLE Arena on September 9, 2018, in Oakland, California. (Photo by Robert Reiners/Getty Images) /

Jungle

Jake “Xmithie” Puchero vs Nam “Lira” Tae-yoo

Xmithie has proven already that he is the most consistent jungler in NA. He is versatile, with a wide champion pool and the ability to swing a game with clever jungle pathing and ganking routes. With Xmithie on Team Liquid, you know that they are never really out of a game despite how it might seem. He does have the highest KDA in the league with a 6.4.

While he does have a tendency to miss some Sejuani ultimates to the point that the whiffing of a Sejuani R has been deemed the “Xmithie”, that is a small blight on many many great performances from Liquid jungler. The community will have no doubts about this match-up, as his opponent hasn’t been the most consistent, while Xmithie has been the face of consistency.

Clutch Gaming’s Lira. Photo courtesy of Riot Games.
Clutch Gaming’s Lira. Photo courtesy of Riot Games. /

It’s nice to see Lira into another Semi-final, the second of his career in NA, as he has faced the harshest of criticism over the last year. Not to get confused, most of this criticism has been for good reason. His inability to out-jungle his enemies has led to Clutch losing a number of games on his back.

Expect Lira to pick up the likes of Skarner and Rek’sai, or even a Sejuani if he can pry it away from Xmithie’s hands. We will have to wait and see if the intelligent paths he has received praise for in the past can re-emerge when they are needed most on the side of Clutch Gaming.

This matchup in particular, in my opinion, will be the most one-sided matchups in the entire match IF we see shades of the old Lira coming back into his play. If the new and improved Lira comes to play, we could be in for a shock. What I can guarantee is this will be one of the two most influential matchups to the outcome of this series.

Expect there to be plenty of priority towards Sejuani and Skarner, as both junglers love to play these champions. We could also see some more of the last play of jungle Sylas, as the game will be played on patch 9.15, prior to the big nerfs that hit Sylas that took him out of the jungle completely.

Due to pure consistency, the advantage goes to Team Liquid’s Xmithie on this one.

Advantage: Team Liquid.

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