League of Legends LCS Gauntlet Round 2 preview: will the CLG/CG rematch be a repeat?

HONG KONG, CHINA - JULY 28: The official "League of Legends International College Cup" is staged in Hong Kong for the first time -Supporters watching a game on main stage during the E-Sports and Music Festival Hong Kong 2019 on July 28, 2019 in Hong Kong, China. (Photo by Ivan Abreu/Getty Images for Hong Kong Tourism Board)
HONG KONG, CHINA - JULY 28: The official "League of Legends International College Cup" is staged in Hong Kong for the first time -Supporters watching a game on main stage during the E-Sports and Music Festival Hong Kong 2019 on July 28, 2019 in Hong Kong, China. (Photo by Ivan Abreu/Getty Images for Hong Kong Tourism Board) /
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Jungle

Raymond “Wiggily” Griffin vs Nam “Lira” Tae-yoo

After an absolutely awful spring split, Wiggily emerged as one of the best control junglers in the LCS during the summer. He died far less than most other LCS junglers, had one of the highest vision scores per minute, and had nearly a 75% KP. With a champion pool of mostly Jarvan, Sejuani, and Trundle, Wiggily is definitely a steadying presence.

That’s not to say that Wiggily cannot also be the driving force behind his team wins. As he famously broke the team’s losing streak to TSM thanks to Sylas jungle, Wiggily has shown himself to be a player of immense flexibility and confidence.

As I predicted before the Clutch/FlyQuest series, Lira showed himself to be heavily reliant on his pocket Skarner pick. He went 2/3/15 on the Scorpion during the 3-1 series victory on Saturday. Although he did have probably his best game on Sylas in Game 4 (4/1/3), he also had his worst game of the series on Sejuani when the Skarner was taken away from him (0/3/1 in their Game 2 loss).

This is going to be a focal point for CLG to attack and exploit if they want to win. Because Wiggily and Lira really don’t share too many junglers in their pool (ironically, it’s probably the Sylas more than any of the meta junglers), teams might be willing to leave up their opponents best jungle picks. This benefits CLG far more than Clutch, given how deep Wiggily’s champion pool has been in the summer and how much better he is as a baseline jungler than Lira.

Advantage: CLG