Counter Logic Gaming vs. Team SoloMid: By the Numbers

For many CLG fans, the game last Sunday was a heartbreaker.  It looked like it was in the bag right up to the 36 minute mark, when CLG made a couple of tactical errors that cost them the game.

Link jumps in the middle of TSM to . . . ult himself.

After this point, the only objective CLG was able to secure was a Baron kill, and the game ended a little less than 10 minutes later.  What led to the reversal?  Here are some interesting statistics that tell us a lot more about happened between the top NA LCS teams.

1.  TSM only had a gold lead for 4 minutes of game.  There was a brief window at around 19 minutes that TSM out-rotated CLG and took the mid tier 1 and bot tier 1 towers.  However, the gold advantage swung back in CLG's favor after they took the top tier 1 and killed Dyrus (again).  They wouldn't have the gold lead again until they cracked the mid inhibitor tower at 44:19.

Look who's coming up to party in the mid lane again!

2.  Link CLG is afraid of Bjergsen.  With good reason, too.  The three last team fights of the game started with CLG's attempt to lock down Bjergsen.  The result each time?  Not so hot.  Bjergsen picked up 5 more kills, 5 more assists, and only 1 more death (the only successful "lockdown" of Bjerg--he still managed to get two assists in the team fight, though).  Before that, kills had been wildly in favor CLG, with a 10 - 7 lead.  Even though Bjergsen had played a rather passive game prior to that point--only netting 3 kills and using his ult primarily to escape ganks--Link played a very tentative laning phase against him considering all the attention Xmithie and Aphromoo gave to the mid lane.  In the end, Bjergsen had clearly the highest Damage Taken to Damage Done to Champions Ratio (1.9); compare that to WildTurtle (1.7), Doublelift (1.2), and Link (1.1).

WildTurtle goes for broke on Aphromoo.

3.  WildTurtle is not afraid to die.  We all knew from 2014 Worlds that WildTurtle prefers to fight rather than run, but what makes him such a threat is how he keeps his head when he knows he's going to die.

4.  CLG is much better at establishing vision.  When all was said and done, CLG had laid out 145 wards to TSM's 113.  Aphromoo alone set out 65 of those wards, with another 48 from Xmithie--compare that to 60 from Lustboy and 22 from Santorin.  Both teams were effective though at denying vision--about 37% of all wards placed were found and destroyed.

It's a full line up on those kills.

5.  TSM gets everyone a piece of the pie.  With 61 assists for their 20 kills, TSM averaged 4.05 players at every kill, to CLG's 2.87.  That's a great deal of extra gold to go around.

6.  CLG gets buffs and times them.  In addition to the two Barons and four Dragons, CLG secured 15 blue/red buffs over the course of the game, to TSM's 8.  Red buff for Xmithie / Doublelift was like clockwork, with 5 secured red buffs in the first 30 minutes--in contrast, WildTurtle got his first red buff at 25:52.

Who will win the rematch?  It'd be tough to say.  Despite Dyrus's elated cheers at the end of the match, CLG had a much stronger performance for most of the game.  However, TSM has proven that even falling behind almost 7k gold is not enough to keep them down.

If CLG wants to win the rematch, they need to determine how to lock down Bjergsen effectively, and make sure that WildTurtle stays dead.  On the other hand, if TSM doesn't want to leave their victory to chance, they'll need to work on their objective and vision control.

Other interesting statistics:

• For survivability, Zion Spartan took the cake with an average of 12.6k damage per death.  2nd place was Bjergsen (8.7), and 3rd Xmithie (8.55).
• WildTurtle was the money maker with the best GPM at 410 gold per minute.  2nd place was Doubelift (378), and 3rd Bjergsen (370).
• Aphromoo gets the sniper award with an average of 1.8k damage done to champions per kill.  2nd place was Xmithie (3.3), and 3rd WildTurtle (4.1).
• Zion Spartan also had the most effective farm for his last hits (1.68).  2nd place was Bjergsen (1.66), and 3rd Link (1.4).