CLG’s international ambitions in doubt after miserable week nine

The ninth week of League Championship Series was the worst yet for Counter Logic Gaming: It was the first this split where they didn’t win a match, after dropping both of their games to Evil Geniuses and LMQ.

For a team that hopes to qualify for the world championships in a few weeks, results like this show that Counter Logic Gaming may not be fully prepared to compete on an international level. Struggling against last place North American teams doesn’t bode well for their chances against strong Asian teams.

In their first match, Counter Logic Gaming was methodically outplayed by Evil Geniuses. Throughout the first 20 minutes, Evil Geniuses slowly gained an advantage by continuously making trades in their favor. At the 19 minute mark, Evil Geniuses had taken down three towers and secured the dragon at the cost of Johnny ”Altec” Ru’s life, their AD Carry. Small mistakes from CLG stacked up and put Evil Geniuses in a position to easily snowball their advantage.

Evil Geniuses used their gold advantage to force a teamfight right outside of CLG’s base. They were able to keep everyone on their team alive, and killed Zaqueri ”Aphromoo” Black,Austin “Link” Shin and Marcel ”Dexter” Feldkamp. From there, they took down CLG’s nexus at only 27 minutes.

Following the match, CLG’s captain and star AD Carry, Peter “Doubleift” Peng spoke to onGamers about the loss.

We didn’t underestimate them or anything. We actually took picks and bans super seriously. I guess we just got outplayed, and we didn’t play very well. This was just a really bad game for us. It’s just super disappointing because Evil Geniuses should be a free win for us.”

Following a humiliating loss from a last place team, Counter Logic Gaming would prepare to battle LMQ for their first place spot in one of the most nail biting games of the split.

Twenty minutes into the match, CLG made the decision that would cost them the game. They were ahead 4-0 in towers, but the two teams’ gold totals were dead even. With vision control of Baron Nashor, CLG went for a decisive early Baron kill, a decision that has cost them games in the past.

Using the vision provided by Twisted Fate’s ultimate, LMQ caught CLG with their pants down in the Baron pit. LMQ quickly stole Baron and aced CLG. This catapulted them forward with a 4,000 gold lead. Quickly after, LMQ snagged three towers and increased their gold lead to seven thousand.

With a sizeable advantage, LMQ took control of the map and continued to increase their lead. Counter Logic Gaming wasn’t going down without a fight. Following their blunder at Baron Nashor, Doublelift thwarted multiple attempts by LMQ to end the game by picking up back-to-back quadra kills. 

Despite hanging on for 25 minutes, CLG was unable to fend off the Chinese superstars.

Counter Logic Gaming’s coach, Christopher “MonteCristo” Mykles express his disappointment in the match on Twitter.

2nd game we threw this season against LMQ with a dumb, early Baron. So unfortunate.

— MonteCristo (@ggCMonteCristo)  July 20, 2014

As the North American playoffs approach and qualification for the world championships loom, CLG can’t have weeks like this. They need to be consistent. It will be important for CLG to put up strong results as the Summer split comes to a close in two weeks.