Clutch Gaming’s Nexus was destroyed for the first time this split so far by CLG—and it only took four dragons (three of which were Infernal), two Barons, an Elder Dragon, and a 12,000 gold lead to pull it off.
With that sort of lead, you’d think CLG could have ended the game a little earlier than 42 minutes, and normally, you’d be right. But Clutch put up one hell of a fight, and although they eventually lost the game, their efforts made CLG struggle to close it out.
The scariest part of CLG’s game was by far Trevor “Stixxay” Hayes’ Kai’Sa, which clocked in at over 1,000 AP during the end-game—and that was without AP stacks from the Guinsoo’s Rageblade passive on each basic attack. Each Void Seeker launched by Stixxay was enough to take a third of Nam “LirA” Tae-yoo’s health bar on his full build, end-game Trundle.
On someone that wasn’t a full tank, like Fabian “Febiven” Diepstraten’s Swain, it was almost enough to wipe him out completely from full health.
CLG’s win today bumped them up into a tie for second place with six other teams. They still have some serious issues to solve, like what they have Darshan Upadhyaya play when he can’t lock in a strong splitpusher, or Choi “Huhi” Jae-hyun’s unreliability. Despite all that, though, CLG still look better than they did at the start of the last split. They’re finding their own style, confidence, and it looks like they’re communicating a little better on the Rift.
They’re a far cry from the top tier teams like Liquid and Echo Fox, but they’re definitely improving—and if you’re still a CLG fan after witnessing the dumpster fire called the 2018 Spring Split, that’s all you can ask for right now.
