Last night, the NA LCS games had some interesting moments, especially the C9 vs WFX match. It was one-sided and showed that WFX lacks the knowledge of playing in a lane swap scenario and reacting to certain situations. Although Cloud 9’s invasion wasn’t the best, their response to the situation was commendable.
Level 1 strategies
Cloud 9 had a stronger level 1 strategy and wanted to invade WFX’s red buff to catch someone or deep ward to see if WFX wanted to lane swap. However, Helios stopped them with a ward.
By placing the ward early, Helios gave C9 two options: invade while being seen by the ward or wait for it to expire and then invade without WFX knowing. However, the second option was unlikely because it would force C9’s bot lane to go top. Helios should have waited at the entrance to his red buff, ward at 1:00, and see if there was a possible late invade.
The issue here is that Pobelter didn’t place his ward in the middle of the lane like Hai did. Placing the ward in the middle of the lane provides more vision without exposing yourself to danger. It allows you to put pressure on the enemy team and gather knowledge about their movements.
For the red team in a lane swap, it is crucial to start from the enemy blue buff. This way, they can have more players on that side of the map and potentially gain an advantage over the enemy jungler. Starting from the red buff would risk the blue jungler taking his own buffs and giving the red team a disadvantage.
Meteos did a good thing by warding over the wall to see if WFX would invade from the top side. However, he made a dangerous mistake by going alone to his own blue buff without knowing the WFX players’ movements. This could have easily turned into a first blood situation if WFX had reacted properly.
The advantage of C9 here is that Maokai can take a jungle camp solo, allowing him and Meteos to gain more experience and reach level 2 faster. This is because Gnar on the WFX side has to go and share XP with the jungler.
During the game, Winterfox used their advantage on the top side to secure a 3-man crab, while C9 used their advantage to take the dragon with 2 players. Instead of contesting the dragon, C9 opted to kill the crab for vision in a lane that was already safe. This decision ended up gifting Winterfox the dragon.
Later, Hai used his level 3 advantage over WFX’s Gnar, Jarvan, and Thresh to kill Jarvan alone. With 2 kills, 1 dragon, 1 tower, and a gold advantage of over 2k, C9 created a huge lead over WFX.
This example shows how the improper execution of level 1 strategies and the inability to react in certain situations can cost a team the game early on.
esports news, NA LCS, Cloud 9, WFX, level 1 strategy, lane swap, invasion, ward, red buff, blue buff, XP advantage, dragon control.