With a disappointing performance from Team Solomid (TSM) at the Mid-Season Invitational (MSI), various doubts began to resurface about the team’s ability to compete at an international level. One question on many people’s minds is whether their midlaner Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg is not only strong enough to compete with the international mids, but to carry TSM to victory against them. Let’s take a look at data from TSM’s games at World’s 2014, IEM San Jose, IEM Katowice, and MSI to further investigate.
Bjergsen’s Creep Score (CS) at Ten Minutes
Bjergsen’s CS at 10 minute numbers are absolutely massive. Out of his 25 international games, Bjergsen is a staggering 9.24 CS up on his international lane opponent on average. In wins, he is up 14 CS on average, and in losses he is 3.27 CS up. The only times he has ever been down in CS against international competition are:
- In both games against Taipei Assassins’ Morning at Worlds, being down 8 CS and 9 CS respectively (and note that in the second TPA game, he manages to kill his lane opponent at approximately the 11 minute mark, catapulting himself ahead in gold).
- Game 2 and Game 4 of TSM’s quarter finals against Samsung White’s Pawn, being down 16 CS and 1 CS respectively.
- Game 2 of TSM’s semifinals against Unicorns of Love’s PowerOfEvil, being down 24 CS after getting solo-killed in the Azir vs Syndra match-up, and;
- In the bracket stage of the Mid Season Invitational against EDG’s Pawn, being down 6 CS in an Urgot vs Azir match-up.
Jungler Intervention
In 7 of the 25 international games that Bjergsen plays, neither jungler ganks mid and there are no fights or skirmishes near mid by 10 minutes. In these 7 games where the midlane is completely isolated, Bjergsen is on average 12.7 CS up on his lane opponent at 10 minutes. This is incredible when you consider that this statistic includes the game against PowerOfEvil’s Syndra, where Bjergsen was down 24 CS.
Let’s defining a “successful gank” as burning a summoner spell and/or ultimate, or a kill on the lane opponent by a jungler. There are 7 games where Bjergsen receives a successful gank from either his jungler or top laner. In these 7 games, Bjergsen is on average 14 CS up on his lane opponent at 10 minutes. Interestingly, this tells us that for situations where Bjergsen receives a gank compared to situations where he is left alone 1v1, there is actually not much of a difference in the CS lead he will garner.
Lastly, there are 8 games where Bjergsen is successfully ganked himself. Of these 8 games, Bjergsen is on average 1.13 CS up on his lane opponent at 10 minutes. This shows that even after being ganked, you can count on Bjergsen to at least go even. It also shows that in order to stop Bjergsen from accruing a huge lead on your mid laner in international lay, you would need to successfully gank him to simply have your mid laner go even in CS.
Conclusion
Bjergsen’s CS numbers are monstrous at the international level. With this many games where Bjergsen finds himself with a CS lead, it’s clear that TSM’s problems are related to their overall strategy. Bjergsen is certainly strong enough to gain huge leads in a variety of match-ups against international competition, but whether he will carry TSM through is up in the air.
Extra: Reignover’s Terror
While taking notes on TSM’s various international games, I was really blown away by how effective the FNC jungler Kim “Reignover” Ui-jin’s Gragas was in the FNC vs TSM game at the Mid Season Invitational. In this game, TSM mistakenly did not initiate a lane swap against top laner Heo “Huni” Seung-hoon’s Cassiopeia. This led to Reignover executing a total of five ganks before 10 minutes, four of which were successful.
2:35 Gragas blows Cho’gath’s flash.
3:50 Gragas and Cassiopeia dive and kill Gnar.
5:15 Gragas attempts a bot lane gank that results in nothing.
6:50 Gragas and Cassiopeia dive and kill Gnar.
9:05 Gragas ganks mid, resulting in Leblanc killing Cho’gath
In this game, despite being hit with two crippling ganks, Bjergsen still manages a 13 CS lead at 10 minutes over Leblanc. Poor Dyrus has a 20 CS deficit at 10 under Cassiopeia.
