The final day of the third week in the League Championship Series was a day for hunters. The Bestial Huntress Nidalee thrashed her prey, leading the teams that picked the champion to a 3-0 record.
Nidalee combined for 24 kills, 3 deaths, and 18 assists in three matches.
The power of Nidalee usually shines in poke compositions, where her long range spears damage like nuclear missiles. But today the three teams that used her took advantage of more than that. Cloud9 used her range effectively, sieging down towers in Counter Logic Gaming’s face. LMQ’s Nidalee was more aggressive, an assassin prowling the jungle and culling Complexity. For TSM, Nidalee proved to be just the carry they needed to get them over the hump against Curse Gaming.
Hai Lam, 5/3/6 KDA, The Trapper
The mid laner from Cloud9 is in a bit of a slump, one of the reasons Cloud9 has struggled compared to their lofty expectations. But today, his first game as Nidalee in the LCS this year, he was a rock for his team. While he didn’t post the huge stat lines of his Nidalee partners, Lam’s spears were what kept Counter Logic Gaming at bay, allowing Cloud9 to push down objectives in spite of CLG’s gold lead.
Lam looked in his element on Nidalee, able to control the pace of the game with the zoning ability of his trusty spear.
His key play was at Baron, where he narrowly missed a steal and maybe even a solo pentakill.
While Lam didn’t secure the huge play, his spear damage and heals were enough to give Cloud9 the win and keep them in the top three so far this season.
Yu “XiaoWeiXiao” Xian, 14/0/5 KDA, The Panther
The superstar mid laner Xian posted a ridiculous line against Complexity, accounting for 14 of his teams 30 kills. And they weren’t cheap kills, either; Xian was on the prowl, hunting down foes with ruthless precision.
In addition to preying on Neil “pr0lly” Hammad and Jonathan “Westrice” Nguyen solo, Xian was a monster paired with his team, including a triple kill near Complexity’s tri bush.
Xian dealt a whopping 39,674 damage to champions over the course of the match.
Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg, 5/0/7 KDA,The Sniper
Team SoloMid looked like they were headed to a train wreck of a week after losing to LMQ on Saturday. Curse Gaming is a team TSM should beat, but Curse took 4 early kills to put them in dire straits. But Bjerg, the MVP of the Spring Split, put his team on his back yet again, turning the match around by securing a couple early kills thanks to his spear snipe damage, giving Marcus “Dyrus” Hill time to scale into a monster on Jax.
Curse Gaming couldn’t escape TSM and Bjerg and his snipes, like this one on top laner Diego “Quas” Ruiz.
It was an exciting day of League of Legends, headlined by the destructive power of one of the game’s most crowd pleasing champions. Nidalee was a lynchpin of many teams last split, and it looks like we will be seeing more of the Huntress once again.
Published: Jun 9, 2014 07:01 am