Is This the Start of CLG’s Decline?

Counter Logic Gaming is an organization synonymous with competitive League of Legends. They are the longest running LoL team to date, and have enjoyed being in the limelight of the North American scene well past their tournament-winning days.

The original CLG lineup of 2010, featuring Kobe, Bigfatjiji, Chauster, Elementz, and HotshotGG

I say that because the only thing as constant as CLG’s popularity is their likelihood of choking in high pressure situations, most notably the LCS playoffs.

We’ve gone through split after split of hype, but no matter the moniker, whether it be ‘potential’, ‘golden age’, ‘pink age’ or the current ‘faith age’, CLG always seems to falter.

The Cycle of Counter Logic

To illustrate the recurring theme of CLG’s choking, let’s look at the last two splits of the NA LCS.

In the summer of 2014, CLG never had a negative week for the first 8 weeks of competition. Up until that point, they split the week and had 3 undefeated weeks, leading the head-to-head with rivals Team Solo Mid 2 to 1.

A surprise loss to Evil Geniuses team in week 9 gave way to more, first to LMQ, then Curse and finally a demoralizing revenge loss to TSM. A 0-4 streak combined with  internal issues caused coach Christopher “Montecristo” Mykkles to make a controversial decision: ship the squad to Korea to boot camp for the World Championships.

The sub squad that replaced them for the final super week suffered another 0-4 showing, which would have been acceptable if CLG’s boot camp gambit paid off. But as the story goes, CLG came out of their hyperbolic time chamber only to crumble against Curse in a horrendous 0-3 rout.

After having to sit out Season 4 Worlds, CLG attempted to bounce back by replacing their foreign talents with homegrown firepower in Darshan “ZionSpartan” Upadhyaha and Jake “Xmithie” Puchero.

The so-called golden age gave CLG their best regular season finish ever—narrowly missing 2nd place in a tiebreaker with Cloud 9. Though they never had a negative week, they were still unable to beat TSM and were unsuccessful in getting revenge on Curse (now Team Liquid).

HotshotGG was forced to dye his hair pink after losing a bet with Andy “Reginald Dinh, the owner of TSM.

Despite the hype train, CLG’s playoff run ended exactly the same as the last, an embarrassing wipe by Team Liquid, who themselves had a hard time even entering the playoffs.

And that’s just the last 2 splits. For a team constantly hailed as one of North America’s best, their playoff record stands at 8-12 after 5 splits. And 5 of those wins are from 1 split alone!

A Change for the Better?

The team that always shot for the top only ever got as far as third place (in the 2014 Spring Split). At their worst, they faced the threat of relegation. However, for the 2015 Summer Split, real change was promised, and to be fair to the broken record that is George “HotshotGG” Georgallidis, the changes actually looked drastic and positive.

This split marked the first time a core member of CLG was replaced, that being Austin “LiNk” Shin. LiNk was often the target of blame by the community, especially when it came to CLG’s poor playoff showings.

Things looked better for CLG after replacing LiNk.

This is because LiNk usually displayed much more dominating performances in the regular season, but was a non-factor in playoffs. He was also the team’s shot caller along with Zaqueri “Aphromoo” Black, and decided a lot of the team’s pick and ban phase.

Now Zion would share more of the shot calling role, while the mid would be manned by one of NA’s prodigies who for the longest time was said to be stuck on a “lesser” team: Eugene “Pobelter” Park.

On top of that, CLG’s management invested in subs for both their carries, bringing in Choi “HuHi” Jae-hyun and Trevor “Stixxay” Hayes. While many thought CLG would apply a swapping squad to diversify their pick and ban phase like Korean teams were doing, the main focus of these additional members was to motivate the main carries to step up their game.

And for the most part, it worked.

AND YET…

Despite amassing a 7-1 record and holding the top spot in north America for the majority of the Summer Split so far, CLG have done it again.

They rode into week 5 as the top dogs, only to falter against Team Liquid in the most spectacular Shuriman fashion.

After that, it would be as if FeniX put the entire team on tilt, as they have careened down into a 7-5 record by the end of week 6, including more demoralizing losses to TSM and Gravity Gaming.

Their once crisp pick and ban phase has given way to an odd favor for Lulu, which was ironically one of LiNk’s signature champions (cue Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past jokes). To put it simply, CLG look lost.

With such a loss streak on their backs, CLG need to pick up the slack. Should they still lose in week 7 despite facing some of the weakest teams in the league in Enemy and Team Dragon Knights, it may be time to press the panic button.

If you’re a CLG fan, then you best not lose faith or trust in your team now. Things may look bad, but we all know that once that trust is gone, then you are most definitely donezo.

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