League of Legends LCS finals preview: Liquid vs. Cloud9 – why C9 is poised for an upset

Jungle

Dennis “Svenskeren” Johnsen vs. Jake “Xmithie” Puchero

For the last few years, Xmithie was considered the best jungler in the LCS. He was an integral part of Liquid’s team success and drove their strong early gameplay. Now, unfortunately, he might be the most expendable part of their line-up.

Some of that is self-inflicted; despite having the best adjusted KDA among junglers in the regular season, he also had a tendency to fall behind in the early game. This trend, unfortunately, continued into the playoffs as he averaged a 200g and 200 XP deficit at 10 to Lira. Now I think Lira was massively underrated, but Xmithie should not be getting out-jungled by him that bad.

Unfortunately, Xmithie’s competition only gets harder this weekend, as he faces off against the recently-crowned LCS MVP in Svenskeren. Svenskeren was not only one of the best early game junglers during the split, but he’s also continued to be one of the best in the playoffs. In the semifinals, he completely worked over Wiggily, one of the strongest junglers during the Summer Split.

This is the easiest place for Cloud9 to leverage their advantage. With Svenskeren earning MVP honors and Xmithie underperforming relative to his past performance, Liquid’s early game dominance could be in jeopardy.

Advantage: Cloud9