The 2016 League of Legends World Championships have officially begun. CLG kicked off the tournament facing off against Europe’s number one team in G2. Much to the delight of the home crowd at Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, CLG managed to take down their European counterparts in a convincing fashion.
This game was all about CLG. Things were looking good for the last North American seed immediately coming out of champion select. While G2 opted to build a bursty team composition around Jhin/Jayce/Syndra, CLG chose to counter with a dive composition which would look to run directly at those squishy targets.
The person leading the charge for CLG was jungler Xmithie on Olaf. Despite a rather defensive build featuring Cinderhulk and a Sightstone, Xmithie found himself with a 5/0/3 score line just seconds after the 15 minute mark. This was the result of a series of successful ganks and skirmishes taking place on the bottom side of the map.
A dive bottom, a gank mid, a skirmish bottom, and then returning mid lane to take out the turret; Xmithie and CLG rotated crisply around the map seeming to only participate in plays that enabled them to build on their gold lead.
Thanks for the love guys. Shout out to @IMTReignover for helping me get here 😀
— Jake Puchero (@LoLXmithie) September 30, 2016
Generally regarded as a neutralizing jungler, Xmithie’s pathing was much more action oriented this game. This could be a result of spending more time with Immortals’ ReignOver, who joined CLG on their Korean bootcamp presumably to work with Xmithie. Immortals have long been a team who know when and how to hit the ‘go button’, something CLG did with few flaws in their opening match against G2.
Gg to G2, great start to our tournament from us! #CLGFIGHTING
— Tony Gray (@Zikzlol) September 30, 2016
Whether today’s Olaf performance was influenced by ReignOver or not, it’s clear Xmithie and the rest of CLG benefit from playing on the international stage. It’s much too early to announce the return of 2016 MSI CLG, but if Xmithie and his team are able to continue dominating the early game as well as they did against G2, they will be much tougher than anyone expected.
CLG jungler Xmithie earns Esports Edition’s Day 1 MVP award for his performance on Olaf in CLG’s opening game against G2!