With Patch 3.8, a slew of changes arrived to the Season 3 Jungle, including quicker respawns on camps and increased experience values on the buff monsters. In particular, the change to monster experience was massive. Each buff camp nets a champion a level in the early game. Junglers (and laners in later parts of the game) with control of their buffs would gain strength far faster, while those who lost them to counterjungling suffered immensely. This gives junglers such as Nunu and Lee Sin a powerful new advantage, as their mobility and single-target/monster damage allows them to take the all-important buffs in ways that recent popular junglers cannot.

On Day 1 of Week 2, this new jungle became the strategic focus in half of the games. In CLG vs C9, Meteos brought out Lee Sin for his 1v1 jungle strength and mobility so that his team might have better control over all the buffs on the map. His tracking of CLG's Red Buff timer and attempts to secure it throughout the early game illustrated the importance of the large monsters. This also occurred in VUL vs Crs when Xmithie, also on Lee Sin, arrived at Saintvicious's Red at exactly the right time to Smite it away and get mandatorycloud a quick kill. Another victim of the altered jungle was Nunu, whose recent buffs and general counterjungling ability resulted in bans in three of the four Day 1 games. However, nothing best demonstrated the increased strategic relevance of the early jungle than the frequency of invades and counterinvades. CLG v C9 began explosively when C9 attempted to quickly gain jungle control by stealing CLG's Red, but CLG's early warding allowed them to counter C9's play and secure two quick kills and C9's Blue as well. In contrast, Velocity's lackluster early scouting allowed TSM to get into their jungle unseen, leading to an early First Blood and stolen Red Buff when Evaniskus wandered too closely to the brush in which TSM hid. Though teams will almost certainly be better prepared to handle this change in jungle priority in the future, these trends should persist until the jungle is altered once again.

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Bans:       

6        C9        61.9
vs.
14        CLG        68.3

Bans:       

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After an undefeated Super Week performance, it appeared as if there was no stopping the Cloud 9 hype train. They dominated their Week 1 competitors, proving that at least some of the excitement surrounding their LCS debut was entirely warranted. CLG's first week was extremely sloppy by comparison, so the odds were against them as Week 2 began and they were pitted against the 5-0 C9. Yet CLG rose to this challenge and ended Cloud 9's undefeated streak, shocking critics and spectators alike. CLG managed this impressive task with a combination of intelligent drafting and great decision-making that countered C9's previously insurmountable style. CLG's bans began with Zac, an obvious respect ban against Meteos's signature Champion and an overall protection against easy and aggressive engagement. Banning Thresh removed him from the pool without putting him in Chauster's lackluster hands, while a Rumble removal took away a steadily growing late-game monster that perfectly fits Balls' playstyle (usually shown on Ryze). Of course, with Kennen still in the pool, this became C9's first pick, as the yordle's strength is particularly evident with C9's penchant for decisive initiation. Unfortunately for C9, CLG countered their strong teamfight initiation and turret diving style with their roster: Jayce to prevent minion build-up, Elise to easily catch opponents out of position, and Janna/Trist/Orianna to knock away or reposition C9 Champions such as Kennen, Lee Sin, and Zed. In game, CLG allowed Cloud 9 to aggressively take early objectives in exchange for giving their solo lanes big advantages. Bigfatjiji roamed the map, shirking the farming style adopted by Meteos, to put tons of pressure on C9's lanes, opening opportunities for Doublelift, LinK, and Nien to farm. CLG's farming gave them strength in C9's normally-dominating midgame, as shown by their ability to defend the objectives C9 prizes and pick off C9 stragglers when they were vulnerable on the map. When C9 grouped to push turrets, CLG's composition allowed them to hold with four members while Doublelift split pushed and farmed his hypercarry Tristana. Eventually, CLG was too strong for C9 to directly engage and they could not defend their turrets against a hugely farmed Jayce and Level 18 Tristana. When C9 did engage, CLG took advantage of Cloud 9's "leap-in" requirement to bait them into suicidal plays or push them away, mitigating most of their damage. Their composition outpicked and strategies demolished, C9 could do little against CLG past their early skirmishes and inevitably fell to NA LoL's eldest team.

Day 2 was replete with great plays or terrible coordination, depending on which team you were cheering for. Cloud 9, although behind in kills for a large portion of the game, maintained complete objective control. They took Top Inner tower before the five minute mark and locked down every Dragon of the game. But at the Baron that would have sealed the game, Meteos’ Smite was no match for a rank 1 Howling Gale.

Cloud 9 only had a few minor bloopers, but the rest of NA was not so lucky. For a team that used to run Malphite in Season 2, TSM's performance against CLG was abysmal. Whenever they attempted to counteract CLG’s double-Teleport split push, they stacked their priority targets for a prime Unstoppable Force. Yet CLG did their part to let TSM back into the game, when DoubleLift opted to take Blue buff and let his team die attempting Baron, allowing TSM to take one of CLG’s inhibitor. The onus was on Link, with a supercharged Twisted Fate, to 1v3 TSM and carry CLG to victory. Curse secured an early lead over Dignitas, using a classic Season 2 composition of Shen, Nocturne, and Karthus. dignitas conceded defeat, however, when patoy insisted on Rocket Grabbing Karthus into their team, in a misguided attempt to isolate and shut him down. Instead, NyJacky happily Flashed further in and sacrificed his life for triple kills and objectives. Velocity placed incredible map pressure on Team Coast, quickly pushing down towers with the zoning threat of Xerath. But as to be expected from NA, Velocity faceplanted hard at Baron. Despite over 9 minutes of continuous vision control, Velocity still facechecked into a full Coast team, and Shiphtur landed a 4-man Lissandra W. When Baron had respawned, Velocity asked for an encore performance, and Shiphtur obliged, using Glacial Path to jump over the Baron wall, and landing another 4-man Ring of Frost/Frozen Tomb combo.

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Bans:       

13        TSM        58.6

vs.

27        CLG        71.9

Bans:       

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CLG’s composition could play dispersed on the map, yet converge at any moment, and they played its strengths to the fullest. Dyrus, picking Flash on Jayce against Teleport on Malphite, played aggressive to punish Malphite early for the better scaling summoner. This opened him up to be ganked again and again and again and again. Through a combination of Unstoppable Force, Paranoia, and Twisted Fate's Destiny/Gate, CLG kept Dyrus down and, while sacrificing some global gold, concentrated a lot of money onto Link, enabling him to be the late-game playmaker.

TSM retaliated by grouping and sieging CLG’s towers, trading their own Outer turrets for CLG’s Inners. When pushed against the inhibitors, TSM forced CLG to respond, but respond they sure did. Knowing that Malphite and Twisted Fate could follow through at any time, jiji used the first activation of Paranoia to tax TSM's communication skills, and the second to bear straight down onto any isolated stragglers. Or, TSM’s communication would be so off point that they simply donated free kills. Moreover, TSM stacked their priority targets, allowing Nien to deliver easy, punishing Unstoppable Force knockups onto TSM. As TSM returned to siege, Nien would simply rinse and repeat, setting the stage for CLG to take attempt Baron. In the final fight of the game, TSM finally managed to avoid having multiple priority targets stacked in one Unstoppable Force, but by then it was too little too late.

It was a quagmire for TSM: when they grouped they were punished by Malphite, and while split they were locked down and picked off by Twisted Fate and Nocturne.

TSM’s only silver lining was Baron Nashor. After easily deflecting a TSM siege, CLG went for baron. However, Doublelift chose Blue buff over saving his teammates from an enraged Baron Nashor, allowing TSM to take down CLG's inhibitor and remain in the game. Two back-to-back sieges go horribly wrong for TSM, and CLG are in position to take Baron again. But despite prior lackluster play from Reginald's Karthus, and spectacular ultimates for Nien's Malphite, CLG split at baron, getting zoned out by Karthus and could not lock down TSM’s back line. Despite the 4:1 victory for TSM, Link demonstrated he deserved those early kills and picked up a triple kill on the TSM stragglers, so ending TSM's hopes of victory.

Week 3 of the Summer Split features 12 matches with each team playing three games. This is a new facet of the Summer Split with the number of matches fluctuating between 8 and 12 on a week-by-week basis (baring Super Weeks). Even though they are no longer undefeated, Cloud 9 still have a huge target painted on their back as they sit at a two game lead over the four second place teams. With so many teams in the running for second place this week will be crucial for teams looking to pull ahead in the standings. As for Curse, Dignitas, and Velocity, these three teams look to keep their heads above water as a poor performance this week means they will have dug themselves quite the deep hole with only 6 weeks left in the 9 week split.