A resurgent CLG managed an impressive upset of C9 in the opening game of Week 5 to start off one of the most exciting weeks of LCS play thus far. The entire roster put together a stellar showing to crush the former kings of NA, but Link’s Lulu in particular stands out as a notable champion pick that gave his team the edge it needed to excel. CLG’s remaining composition of Shyvana, Vi, Sivir, and Leona was a bog-standard meta dive team that any common mid would fit well into, and Link put the increasingly popular Lulu niche pick firmly on the map with a declarative performance.

Though solo lane Lulu had fallen out of favor since severe AP ratio nerfs, ‘support’ changes in Season 4 had the unsurprising side effect of making her a viable carry once again. The minimum slow and movespeed boost on her Q and W both have .1 ratios, making AP Lulu a chasing and kiting machine unrivaled by any mid but Orianna. What makes her truly outstanding in a dive composition is her ability to enable insanely aggressive play that would be wildly out of position without her Whimsy, Help, Pix!, and Wild Growth. With the tools to enable the survival of an initiating Vi or Shyvana who runs in far ahead of the team, Lulu not only permits engages at will but also guarantees the survival of a diver by offering well over 1k effective health with a maxed ultimate and Pix shield.

The early game of the match was quite close, with C9 being the first to hit 10k gold on a lead of 500. However, that lead was entirely due to 20 farm differential in the top lane, and the rest of the team was dead even when they clashed at the first Dragon of the game. Leona and Vi dove a healthy C9 to force the fight, and Link was able to follow up with a critical 4 man knockup to save Vi and turn a potentially close fight into a complete rout.



CLG killed Thresh, took Dragon and the gold lead, and never looked back. Excellent Leona play by Aphromoo and good dive sense as a team enabled CLG to snowball their bot lane further, and Link demonstrated Lulu’s infuriating array of CC by knocking up and repeatedly slowing Balls’ Renekton for an easy chase and kill with Shyvana.



Lulu has all the tools a roamer wants apart from a dash or blink - she can push waves easily with Glitterlance, move quickly with Whimsy, and both gank and countergank effectively with substantial damage and powerful utility.

However, Lulu does have an exploitable weakness in her relatively long base cooldowns on Whismy and Help, Pix!. Whismy’s cooldown scales from 18 to 12 seconds while Help, Pix! is fixed at 10, and Glitterlance is also one of the longer bread and butter spells at 7 seconds. These cooldowns mean that Lulu is under pressure to make effective use of each round of her skills. Especially since both Whimsy and Help, Pix! have different effects when used on foes or allies, Whimsying an enemy support who has already used his cooldowns or Help, Pix!ing a friend who is not taking damage makes Lulu nearly irrelevant for the next 10 or so seconds. Lulu’s kit demands strong decision making and punishes mistakes severely. Witness the failed 4v4 at Bot lane where CLG was sitting on a comfortable gold lead, started the fight by killing Draven, but still lost two members in the ensuing 3v4. Link used Wild Growth on Vi, who died anyways and had no impact on the fight after being ulted apart from soaking damage. Wild Growth can be valuable even if the target dies if keeping them alive buys useful time, but in this case it did not. He then inefficiently used both Glitterlance and Whismy on Hai’s Orianna to deny himself the chance to speed boost and escape.



He died as a result, and C9 followed up that win by taking the first bot tower and catching Doublelift out by the second.

Apart from this admittedly serious hiccup, CLG’s lead was never threatened in the rest of the game, and the nearly 9k gold difference by 25 minutes into the game limits the analysis value of the remaining fights. What is apparent, though, is that Lulu’s utility and versatility were the tracks upon which CLG’s no-brakes dive train rolled. In the fight for the second Dragon that sealed the win for CLG, the persistent aura slow of Wild Growth was used to buff Nien even before he ulted into the fight, giving Shyvana the CC she sorely needs in order to wreak as much AoE devastation as possible.



A similar strategy of ulting Vi before she attacks the back line is also a powerful combo, as the slow she applies on the way in allows follow up from an even greater distance than normally feasible. Sivir, Talisman Leona, and Lulu combine for obscene movespeed bonuses that laugh in the face of traditional, closely grouped positioning and team movement concepts.

The remainder of the game was just a comically ahead CLG making Summoner’s Rift their playground, and while CLG’s overall play was sharp enough that they could have won with another champion mid, Lulu’s unique advantages were instrumental in both of the Dragon fights that brought CLG big leads, and her excellent fit in dive comps is unmatched. Although the botched fight that resulted in Link’s first death should serve as a warning that she is very punishing of misplays, Lulu was the perfect pick to complete CLG’s dream draft and looks to be a strong champion in games to come.

Renekton, Dr. Mundo, Shyvana, Trundle. These tanky, (mostly) resourceless champions with huge damage in extended fights and incredible initiation abilities dominate the top lane in Season 4. They are currently the best champions in the game at free-farming early, pushing their lanes, surviving initiations, and wrecking havoc in enemy back lines. In fact, these picks are so strong that there have only been two games in the past five weeks that did not feature at least one of those champions in the top lane.* Other picks, such as Warwick, Nasus, and Yasuo, appear from time to time, but are generally considered second-tier in comparison to the Four Top Lane Kings. As spectators, we know to expect little in the top lane in the early parts of the game since the laners there rarely duel, are infrequently ganked, and only push when they have a significant advantage. While top laners in this role are major contributors to the victories of their teams, we rarely look to them for "carry potential." Instead this potential is typically relegated to solo mid laners, ADCs, and junglers, who are given the task of crushing their lane opponents, making decisive calls, and outplaying their enemies throughout the mid and early game when the top laners are upon their "island." In Season 4, the top lane carry barely exists, even though in past seasons players like Voyboy or HotshotGG made a name for themselves by skillfully tipping the scales in their teams' favors.

Defying the current metagame is Coast's ZionSpartan, the single top lane carry of Season 4. Week 5 was Coast's first 2-0 week, taking wins against EG and Coast on the back of ZionSpartan's individual talent and Coast's ability to play and draft in a way to allow Zion to take center stage. Zion's choice to play Jax in both games was an integral part of his ability to guide his team to a victory. Since release, Jax has been one of the strongest late-game melee champions in the League due to his powerful hybrid damage, his innate tankiness from Grandmaster's Might, his Leap Strike mobility, and his ability to avoid damage with Counter Strike. These characteristics allow his players to itemize heavily towards damage and still be effective in melee range, a trait few other champions can boast. As such, effectively employing Jax in a composition requires a team to allow him space to farm the items he needs and to help him survive until his full power can be utilized in teamfights or split pushing. Coast drafted perfectly for this scenario. With the long range poke and good disengage of Caitlyn and Nidalee, CST could defend and siege turrets without ZionSpartan's aid. Two crowd control heavy Champions to round out the lineup (Elise/Lulu and Thresh/Vi) made the four remaining members the best possible 4v5s they could ask for, as well as plenty of ways to give Zion low health targets upon which to pounce (or increase his own survivability in the case of Lulu and Nidalee). Banning Olaf was another stroke of genius for this "4 support 1" style of play: since the tanky viking can ignore (most) damage and CC, keeping him away from opponents means one of the better counters to their style was out of play.



ZionSpartan rounded out this well-theory-crafted style with sound strategic decisions and impressive play. Instead of the "middle of the lane farming" style that top laners default to in the early levels, ZionSpartan constantly pushed the top wave to the tower in the early levels. In doing this, Zion bets on the rarity of top ganks in the current metagame to gain an early lead and make an early purchase. This allows him to augment a weaker early game with the power up to three Doran's items, as well as Mana Potions that allow him to keep pace with his resourceless opponents. Zion also frequently trades in lane, knowing that Jax's Empowered and Grandmaster's-augmented attacks will give him an advantage during extended trades and that Counter Strike and Leap Strike will give him an escape in a pinch. Once Zion had enough money for a full Triforce, he was nearly impossible to stop and turned into a split-pushing menace that took multiple members to stop and allowed Coast to pick up other objectives. A Blade of the Ruined King on top of that essentially meant the end of the game for Coast's opponents, who could not handle a two-damage-item Jax. In Coast’s game against EG, Zion continued his build with a Spirit Visage then a Hextech Gunblade, a rare item choice that remains a good late-game option for hybrid Champions like Jax that are focused almost entirely on damage. Particularly strong play is featured in CST v. XDG when ZionSpartan laned against Benny's Trundle. Knowing the power of Benny's Subjugate, Zion never activated Grandmaster's Might when the Trundle ult was up, preventing Benny from getting the free stats that would help him win duels. It remains to be seen whether or not ZionSpartan's top lane power can contest the stronger NA teams in the latter half of the season, but if there's anything that can keep Coast from falling into another losing streak, it's letting Zion carry them to the victory.



* For those who are curious... Games Without the Four Top Lane Kings
(Week 2, CRS v CST [Jax v Nasus])
(Week 2, C9 v CRS [Rumble v Jax])

The North American LCS has the unfortunate reputation of being known for massive throws. Even as the seasons go on and the competition gets better, there still seem to be several massive leads that simply slip through the winning teams’ hands each week. Despite these throws being so common, it's rare to see more than one or two in a single game. But in the Week 5 matchup between XDG and Curse, viewers saw what might have been the most back and forth game in League of Legends history.

Curse got out to an early lead with a perfectly coordinated Leona/Ezreal engage on BloodWater from Saintvicious and Cop. This was just the start, as IWillDominate and Quas were also able to pick up kills of their own. Despite these leads, Voyboy was hurting in Mid lane against Gragas, who at one point held a 40 CS lead on Voy's Vladimir. Overall, though, things were going well for Curse until about the 20 minute mark.

Following a whiffed Solar Flare from Saint, XDG were able to grab a kill on him and the Bot Outer Turret. A few seconds later, Mancloud roamed Top and helped take down Quas and the Top Outer Turret, which led to XDG taking a slight gold lead. However, XDG decided to hand it right back over to Curse with a botched Blue invade.




Not even five minutes later, Curse tried to engage on XDG around Dragon, but the fight quickly turned in XDG's favor. Voyboy tried to escape the fight with Sanguine Poo,l but a well timed Explosive Cask from Mancloud deleted him right as he exited the pool. XDG won the fight and were able to pick up Dragon.

The final shift in the game came at a time that looked bleak for Curse. Saint had just been caught and killed by XDG, but Curse found Mancloud alone in their Jungle. Due to Benny split pushing Bot, Curse was able to fight 4v4. They killed Mancloud early, and XDG just didn't have the damage to beat Curse.



XDG looked like they might force one more throw from Curse by basically 100-0ing Saint during a siege, but were unable to convert any objectives. Curse later capitalized on a poor engage from XDG during a siege and were able to take the win. All in all, there were about four major moments when the leading team lost their lead. It was an ugly game from both teams, but Curse was fortunate that their throwing arm wasn’t nearly in shape as XDG's.

Old school organization Dignitas and CLG will be racing for the third place position in Week 6 after tying in Week 5. With two games a piece, they could continue their tie into Week 7, particularly if mutual opponent XDG manages to score an upset against both of the veteran squads. Unfortunately for XDG, their mid-season loss of BloodWater and sudden role fluctuations make their chances of a victory in this or any following week highly unlikely. The two other opponents of DIG and CLG are EG and Team Coast, who will have trying weeks considering their other opponents hail from the very top of the current LCS bracket. Yet it is Curse who will face the toughest Week 6 of all when they face off against both TSM and Cloud9. As the halfway point of the split approaches, winners, losers, and fans alike know that every moment counts. Don't miss a single one.