Vayne Mid was picked in the LCS last night, but how did it do?
It was a weekend to remember in the LCS, as week two is officially in the history books. For Cloud9, day two was a day they would want to forget about quickly as they were demolished by the winless Shopify Rebellion, ending their winning streak to lose grasp on first place. However, a few botched plays were not the game’s main talking point. Insanity would go onto pick Sion mid, a pick that LS stated on his stream has been discussed. Instead of picking a generic meta champion into Sion, Cloud9’s jojopyun attempted to channel his inner Caps and lock in Vayne – this is the first time the champion has been played Mid in LCS history. ESTNN is here to break down what went down between Shopify Rebellion and Cloud9.
DYLAN, WE HAVE TO GO VAYNE pic.twitter.com/Yj8yFYXbwH
— Cloud9 League of Legends (@C9LoL) January 28, 2024
Bot Lane Dive Heavily Impacted The Game
The match started as aspected for Jojopyun; the lane was going exceptionally well, up a good amount of CS. As anyone who has played top lane can attest, playing a short-range melee tank into a ranged champion like Vayne is the worst experience imaginable. You are consistently shoved under your tower, contested on every minion, and want to vote for surrender at the earliest chance. To make matters worse, Cloud9 even secured first blood onto Vayne after Blaber counter-ganked Bugi to put Vayne even further ahead. This was until disaster struck for Cloud9, specifically jojopyun, who had to sit back and watch his team throw the entire game away.
Blaber, Vulcan, and Berserker attempted to dive onto the SR botlane. This was quickly thwarted after a brilliant denial from Zeyzal; C9 did not pick up a single kill in this exchange, while Bvoy picked up two. Shopify Rebellion had already picked up the first three Voidgrubs while C9 secured dragon following their first blood. This meant this dive onto the SR bot lane had to work because the second rotation of Grubs had spawned, and giving up all six in return for nothing was the worst-case scenario. This is precisely what happened: C9 walked away with nothing, While Shopify walked away with three kills and all six Voidgrubs.
The game felt extremely unplayable for C9 at this point. Fudge’s Aatrox was not resisting Udyr, who was left untouched and winning in the top lane. Sion had held on enough to become the meaty frontline Shopify needed, and Varus was so far ahead of the curve he was slicing through Cloud9 like butter. On top of that, Shopify had six Grubs and could take towers at ease as C9 was pulled across the map. To make matters worse, C9 had no wave clear, so they were contested at every creep with a long-range Varus Q and Lilia poke. Despite Cloud9’s best efforts, their composition was unplayable from behind. The decision to forgo six grubs accelerated the game for Shopify, who were involved in their assault on the C9 towers.
For Vayne specifically, it is a pick I hope Cloud9 does not hide away from just because they lost. Many analysts and streamers praised the pick during champion selection, as not many teams opt for a good pick in isolation. We have seen top LEC teams do this for years, and it is a skill Cloud9 should continue to embrace moving forward. Picking champions in isolation is not normalized in the LCS, with many going for a generic meta pick that is even worse than locking in Vayne. Even in a losing effort, Jojo performed valiantly and did a lot of damage; the game was simply unplayable after the bot lane dive.
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