Analysis on Xmithie’s Gank Priority and Success for CLG

Here is my second analysis on jungler priority. This one will be on Xmithie, jungler for CLG. CLG is known for having bot lane priority thanks to the famous rush hour. Also, with the induction of ZionSpartan CLG has increased their top lane priority as well. The one thing I am curious about is just how well rounded is CLG now? Do they still emphasize the bot lane the most? What is their growing trend with ganks so far this season? I will answer these questions along with meticulously going through each game on when Xmithie ganks, who he ganks, and the success of that gank.

Side Note: As usual, if you don’t want to look through each week you can just go to the end where I will have my conclusions and finalized data. Each week I cover what time Xmithie ganks, how many times does he look for ganks that don’t occur, and what gold lead CLG had at 15 minutes resulting from his ganks.

Week #1

CLG faced DIG first for the first week. Xmithie brought out his Lee Sin against Sejuani. Just by looking at these picks Xmithie should be aggressive while Azingy is weak early on and boy did he start pressuring early. At 2:30 Xmithie ganked mid with Zion, but they just applied pressure. At 4:05 he ganked top lane with Doublelift, Aphromoo, and Zion, again it only applied pressure. At 13:18 he ganked bot lane and for a 3rd time just applied pressure. Finally, Xmithie ganked bot lane at 14:12 and Doublelift landed an Ashe arrow to get a kill on Corejj. Also to note, Xmithie looked bot lane 3 times at 5:58, 6:50, and 11:30 to look for an opportunity with ZionSpartan. Xmithie showed a primary focus on getting Doublelift rolling, but he also looked for opportunities with ZionSpartan. Two lane focus and constant pressure makes mid lane the best focus for DIG, but they never were able to get hold of Pobelter’s Kog’maw. CLG held a 2100 gold lead at 15 minutes against DIG. With this lead and a scaling Kog’maw CLG will continue to take over the rest of the game.

Against TIP Xmithie had Sejuani against Evelynn. Facing Evelynn with a non-early game jungler means Xmithie has to be careful on where he goes. However, unlike Santorin Xmithie is a bit more aggressive in this matchup. At 5:34 he ganks top lane with Doublelift and Aphromoo which resulted in killing Apollo and Adrian, but losing Doublelift. At 7:45 Xmithie ganks mid to pressure Evelynn off Pobelter or else he would have died. At 8:26 Xmithie sets up a gank in the jungle by baron, but a missed ultimate and Pobelter already being dead led to losing Xmithie, Doublelift, and Aphromoo. They did get a kill on Adrian though. Throughout the game Xmithie will look mid twice at 4:50 and 15:00 and then look bot lane at 13:52 and 10:55. If not for bad team fight in the jungle gank CLG wouldn’t have been down 1000 gold at 15 minutes. They should have called it off when Pobelter died, but Xmithie still went for it. What I can say at least is this game helps show Xmithie isn’t afraid of an Evelynn pick even though he had Sejuani. He kept lanes safe by waiting in bushes and even went for a reasonably early gank to get his duo lane rolling.

Summary: CLG shows a great mix of priority and different gank timings. He went to each lane twice and even tried a set up in the jungle. When Xmithie played Lee Sin he was aggressive early and helped snowball CLG. Against TIP he played a slower jungler in Sejuani, but still went for pre-6 ganks to try to get his lanes snowballing and keeping them reassured against Evelynn. If we throw out the jungle gank that went horribly wrong CLG would come out on two strong starts.

Week #2

T8 is CLG’s first opponent for this week. Xmithie brought out the Rek’sai vs Sejuani. Xmithie came out strong early on with a gank at 4:46 in the bot lane with ZionSpartan and blew his flash to kill Calitrlolz. The next gank came at 10:16 in the bot lane with Doublelift and Aphromoo where they blow Cali’s teleport. Next, at 12:35 Xmithie ganks bot again with Doublelift, Aphromoo, and Zion which leads to killing Nien. Finally, the last gank came at 13:40 in the mid lane where Zion teleports and Xmithie ults in to kill Cali. Xmithie also looked bot and mid once and top lane twice. Xmithie showed jungle pressure throughout the game and snowballed Zion and Doublelift. CLG had a commanding 3200 gold lead at 15 minutes. This was a great game by CLG and even better for Xmithie who carried the early game for the most part.

The second game was against TSM. Xmithie took the Lee Sin vs Santorin’s Rek’sai. I talked about this matchup a bit in my analysis of Santorin, but the gist of it is Xmithie needs to be proactive early or else he just gets out scaled. Xmithie sadly ganked once and it was at 10:00 in the top lane with Zion, but Xmithie couldn’t move fast enough and just applied pressure. Other than this one gank Xmithie looked top lane at 3:30 and looked bot at 5:30 and 6:50. When Xmithie was looking for a gank top lane with the Double and Aphro he decided to not take a risk, but in retrospect he could have asked Aphro to flash in to lock down Turtle and follow up by either blowing TSM’s duo’s summoners or possibly getting a kill. However, Xmithie decided to never take any risks which resulted in Santorin just out farming him and then TSM setting up one play to snowball the game off of. Xmithie needed a performance like his game against DIG. CLG was down 2500 gold at the 15 minute mark forcing them to take higher risk plays in order to get back into the game.

Summary: Xmithie played two early game junglers in Lee Sin and Rek’sai. With his Rek’sai he applied pressure for each player and essentially snowballed Zion and Doublelift. In his game against TSM he didn’t aggress nearly as much and cost his team to become reactive vs TSM’s proactive set gank. Top and ADC were the most priority this week with a small amount of Pobelter.  

Week #3

First game of the week is against GV. This featured Gragas vs Move’s Jarvan. Jarvan is a strange pick currently due to his slow clear, but if he lands his E+Q his knock up and armor reduction can be powerful. Xmithie started this game with a gank top at 9:48 with Zion where they blow Hecarim’s ultimate. Then at 10:40 Xmithie ganks mid which turns into a 4v4 and they kill Move. Finally, at 12:38 Xmithie goes bot where Doublelift’s Ashe arrow sets up a kill on Altec. As a note, GV tried to flank CLG when they were 4 man pushing top and CLG ended up with 3 kills. Besides this, Xmithie looked top at 6:45 and looked bot 2 times at 9:00 and 12:00. GV’s poor team fighting early game led to a big lead for CLG and Xmithie continued this lead with pressure and kills. CLG finished with a 4900 gold lead at 15 minutes, which is a massive lead. The ganks are delayed due to GV playing more passive after losing 3 people early, but Xmithie still was able to apply pressure leading towards 2^nd dragon.

The second game was against NME. Xmithie brings out his Nunu vs Rek’sai. It’s hard to believe how Xmithie only ganked once in the TSM game with Lee Sin, but ganked 5 times with Nunu against NME. Xmithie’s first gank was at 4:50 in the bot lane with Zion and just resulted in pressuring Otter. At 5:45 he ganked top with Double, Aphro, and Zion to get a kill on Flaresz and Trashy. This was mainly due to the flash+cosmic binding by Aphro. At 9:08 Xmithie ganks top with Zion to kill Flaresz, but Zion dies in the process. At 12:40 Xmithie ganks bot lane with Double, Aphro, and Zion TP, but they end up losing Zion for nothing gained. At 13:43 Xmithie ganks mid in order to try to save Pobelter and they burn Vayne’s summoners, but Pobelter dies. Overall, Xmithie was around top lane 4 times besides the ganks and even harassed Rek’sai early on. CLG came out with a 1300 gold lead at 15 minutes. What this shows is great confidence in his teammates and ganks where he will provide the pressure and slows while he depends on the main crowd control from his teammates to set up the ganks. Even with the loss of two teammates Xmithie wasn’t really at fault in those. It was more just Pobelter getting caught and Zion teleporting in without Mega Gnar.

Summary: An enormous win against GV while against NME Xmithie ganks the most so far this split with Nunu. Xmithie continues the trend with prioritizing top and bot while showing up mid now and then.

Week #4

TDK is the first match for this week. Xmithie gets his Gragas again vs Rek’sai. Gragas can sustain well in the jungle which should give Xmithie chances to aggress early. Note that Pobelter is Kog’maw so he most likely won’t gank mid. At 8:16 Xmithie ganks bot lane, but Doublelift and Aphromoo both die due to Rumble teleporting and Xmithie not being level 6. At 10:10 he ganks top with Zion and they kill Seraph. At 13:33 he ganks top again with Zion and kill Seraph one more time. Xmithie didn’t look for much early on until his first gank which went amiss. Due to this he prioritized the last position where he had a high success rate, Zion. It was the right call and let Zion snowball the game and keep Pobelter safe while he scaled with Kog’maw. However, CLG was down 1800 gold at the 15 minute mark. It will be a sloppy game by CLG overall, but a win due to scaling, proper team fighting, and decision making later in the game.

Last game of the week is against C9. Xmithie is on Rek’sai vs Meteo’s Ekko. Xmithie ganks first at 6:56 in bot with Zion and they kill Fizz. Then he ganks one more time at 9:24 in top with Zion to kill Fizz once more, but Zion ends up dying in the process. Xmithie will look top and bot one more time each and get an additional kill on Fizz prior to 15 minutes, but not through a gank. CLG gets a 1600 gold lead at 15 minutes. Xmithie snowballed Zion’s Gnar against Balls’ Fizz which benefits the whole team since if Fizz is behind he is next to useless and it helps keep the back line safe from a snowballed Fizz. It does help as well that Meteos was extremely passive this game and offered little pressure or help to his team even though his team was on a timer for falling off.

Summary: Xmithie came out with good pressure and kills for ZionSpartan in both games. Pobelter was left alone for the most part and bot lane was looked at only a few times. A failed gank against TDK skewed the lead early, but CLG’s better map player allowed them to come up with a win.

Conclusions

Bot>Top>Mid>Jungle

Xmithie’s priority for ganks are bot lane 40% of the time, top lane 36% of the time, mid lane 20% of the time, and in the jungle 4% of the time. These numbers will also remain the same for actual role priority. The reason it’s important to include role priority is due to lane swaps. If a team lane swaps their duo top then ganking top lane is actually ganking for your duo lane. I found that both the physical location and role priority were the same.

Now it’s no surprise here that Xmithie prioritizes rush hour and ZionSpartan. Both Doublelift and ZionSpartan are capable of carrying games. They are also trustworthy to give leads to and can count on them later in the game. Pobelter has actually been prioritized less frequently than I originally believed, but he makes great use of the resources he gets. If we compare this to TSM the priority for CLG is more balanced.

Looking at the trend of prioritization Xmithie started the first week balancing his ganks in all three lanes. Week 2 he starts moving more towards top and bot. Week 3 he continues this trend of showing up to mid a small amount of time. Finally, Week 4 mid was completely left alone while Zion received the brunt of the ganks and the duo once. To keep in context for week 4 Pobelter played as Kog’maw in the TDK game, which isn’t a very good lane to gank for and against C9 Xmithie wanted to prioritize stopping Balls’s Fizz so he couldn’t snowball at all.

The average 1^st gank by Xmithie is at 6:35, 2^nd gank is at 8:18, 3^rd gank at 11:36, and his 4^th gank is at 13:30. His first gank on average is 12 seconds faster than Santorin and his second gank is 26 seconds faster. However, his 3^rd and 4^th gank are usually slower by at least 2 minutes. Like I state in my last article I wouldn’t base too much off the 3^rd and 4^th gank due to other variables and not enough data involved for both. Also, note I compare the gank timings to Santorin’s overall gank timings versus his specific Rek’sai gank timings which I address in my last analysis.

If we look at the success rate of Xmithie’s ganks you will notice a high percentage of ganks lead to kills. Xmithie ganks have a 56% success to get a kill, 28% to just apply pressure, 12% to just blow summoners, and 4% to end up doing nothing. Xmithie’s ganks have a 14% higher average to lead to kills compared to Santorin’s ganks, but the chance to just blow summoners is 24% less. Kills can lead to objectives and snowballing lanes, but blowing summoners can apply their own kind of pressure. Santorin blew Incarnation’s flash early on in his first game and Bjergsen accumulated a 100 CS lead. Of course, it’s up to the team and person laning the opposition to take advantage of the blown summoners. Blowing summoners is also particularly good when an objective like dragon or baron is coming up.

Side Note: For those confused on why the 3^rd gank percentages don’t add up is because jungle gank priority for 3^rd ganks is set at 16.67% thanks to the game against TIP.

To get into real specifics here, let’s look at how the priority of each player evolves throughout the game. ZionSpartan’s priority for the first gank is at 62.50%, then falls to 28.57% for the second gank, and goes up just a little to 33.33% for the 3^rd gank. Meanwhile Doublelift’s priority for first is set at 25%, then moves up to 42.86%, and then finishes at 50% for the 3^rd gank. Finally, Pobelter’s priority for first gank is 12.50%, 2^nd gank he is at 28.57%, and then his 3^rd gank priority is 0%. Looking at this data CLG wants to get ZionSpartan rolling early on. Having your top laner snowball and make more impactful teleports can help snowball his lead to other lanes. Pobelter and Doublelift get some attention in the early game as well if there are openings. As the game progresses through the early game Xmithie will put more emphasis on Doublelift. One reason for this is because typically the duo will rotate bot to be readily available for dragon. It also gives times for the ADC to grab some damage items and gives time for the strong duo lane to create a lead on their own. Coupling this data with the average ganks it is likely that Xmithie will gank ZionSpartan’s lane first between the 6 and 8 minute mark. Doublelift will usually receive his ganks between the 8 and 12 minute mark. Highest chance for a gank with Pobelter would be pre-8 minutes.

These gank choices also further make sense if we look at the success rate for each individual player. When ganking for ZionSpartan there is a 67% chance it leads to a kill and a 33% chance to just apply pressure. Having a 67% to get a kill is a very good stat to have and makes the lane a good choice to target early on. For the duo lane there is a 50% chance to get a kill, 20% to just apply pressure, 20% to just blow enemy summoners, and a 10% that nothing happens. For 70% of the time something good can come out of it. Applying pressure isn’t terrible by all means, but sometimes applying some pressure won’t change much. Finally, for Pobelter there is a 40% to kill, 40% to just apply pressure, and a 20% chance to just blow enemy summoners. For Pobelter there aren’t as many ganks so I wouldn’t fully trust these numbers. At the very least something positive comes out from mid lane, but the percentage plays are better with ZionSpartan and Doublelift.

Finally, the last part to look over involves the overall benefits of Xmithie. CLG held an average 912.50 gold lead at 15 minutes. This is 475 gold less than TSM at 15 minutes. Xmithie averages 3.125 or 3 ganks per a game. Just looking at these numbers Xmithie typically ganks .875 more times or one more time per a game compared to Santorin and yet CLG has a lower gold differential at 15 minutes. Part of this is due to CLG having more ganks that have failed compared to TSM. CLG lost teammates 5 times in the 25 ganks done by Xmithie or in other words they had a 20% chance of losing a teammate in the ganks created so far. We can’t forget how Balls traded one for one a couple times this past week. I will acknowledge though that this number is a bit off due to Xmithie coming in late once and Zion teleporting without Mega Gnar, but the teammate deaths do help show the lower gold total. Another reason for this can be due to CLG over aggressing at the wrong times when they don’t have to. I do like seeing them showing the incentive to snowball their lead farther though.

Thanks for reading all the data I put up. My next jungler analysis will be on Bengi from SKT1.

Credits to lolesports for the VODS and picture of Xmithie in CLG attire.