CLG Destroys Team Liquid’s Playoff Hopes in the LCS Spring Split With the Superweek Win

CLG will play Cloud9 tomorrow in order to determine their own playoff fate.

The playoff race has been in full force during the last super week of the LCS Spring Split. With top teams like Evil Geniuses and Golden Guardians stumbling in the last couple of weeks and 100 Thieves finally finding their form, the spots outside of the top two have been up for the taking. Today also saw multiple games with big playoff implications. The first game of the day was between 100T and EG, where the Thieves managed to guarantee themselves a tiebreaker game at the very least with a victory. Then a TSM triumph over the last place Dignitas put them on 8 wins total, tying CLG and one more over TL.

Coming into the game this matchup was especially important for Team Liquid as they needed a win to continue their fight for the postseason. TL has a losing head-to-head against both TSM, 0-2, and CLG, 0-1, before the game. So even a tie would see their elimination, which meant the CLG game was a must-win to force a tiebreaker. Unfortunately for TL, the result wasn’t what they were hoping for.

CLG vs TL

Teams had different approaches in the drafting phase, even with both teams picking hard-scaling AD carries. While Team Liquid put together a very standard front-to-back teamfighting comp with a tank top lane, CLG got their hands on a counter pick for Dhokla and the aggressive jungle/mid duo of Elise/Jayce. CLG’s game plan worked out really well in the early portions of the game as Contractz was able to find the first blood in the mid lane and carry over this pressure to secure first objectives at both sides of the map.

EL CONTRACTO FOR FIRST BLOOD #LCS #CLGWIN #DefendTheFaith pic.twitter.com/rMKtL5qmFe

— CLG (@clgaming) March 16, 2023

CLG kept targeting Haeri in the mid lane time and time after again, killing him three times and taking his turret before the plates fell off. At the 14-minute mark, TL found themselves 3.5k gold and two drakes behind before they even had a chance to start participating in the game.

Feeling desperate in the face of a snowballing enemy team, Team Liquid tried to contest the third drake. Despite getting a kill and pushing back CLG, they couldn’t take the actual objective, which meant an early Ocean Soul point. But Palafox made a big mistake just as they were getting ready to claim the Soul as he got caught in the River, giving over a big shutdown. This delay was massive for TL as they got more items on their carries and Contractz’s Elise started to fall off in terms of impact.

This mistake was almost disastrous as it kept getting riskier for CLG to challenge TL around objectives, Summit’s Sion now scaled and CLG without a tank to match him. Thankfully for the young player, CLG eventually won one of the fights and secured the Soul. With the momentum now behind them once again, they even took the game’s control back and pushed for a successful Baron. Team Liquid tried for one last engage in the bot lane during the Baron siege, but CLG hold their ground and managed to win the fight.