Echo Fox vs Cloud9

For our third match of the day we have an incredibly exciting clash between Cloud9 and Echo Fox. Both teams are currently tied for the number one spot and predicting the outcome of this single game is almost next to impossible after the high level of play both teams displayed over the last couple of weeks.

Cloud9 were pretty slow yesterday against TSM for the first few minutes of the game until Svenskeren came in to help Licorice and turned a botched TSM top dive into a two for zero. That was a huge turning point and from that moment forward Cloud9 didn't skip a beat.

Licorice consistently manages to hold his own in lane even without huge jungle proximity from Svenskeren which is a huge advantage for the boys in blue. He's performing admirably well on the hottest and most contested picks in the current meta which means Cloud9 don't really have a weak point, at least not a glarring one. Many thought that Impact's departure would be their bane however they managed to start off the season incredibly strong.

They also managed to turn Svenskeren's aggression from a fault into a trait, as they're far more ready to follow him and stand by his engages and decisions. They're an incredibly solid team, however most other top tier teams are struggling - Team Liquid in particular, 100 Thieves fell off hard after their solid start, CLG in general has an incredible game and then a couple of abysmal ones and TSM is improving for sure, however at an incredibly slow pace. Because of that it's hard saying with certainty whether or not Cloud9 are playing on a very high level, or if the level of competition just fell off a bit.

A lot of the same can be said for Echo Fox, however they are a lot more dominant in general. 100 Thieves got the better end in the early game yesterday as they were just a little bit faster on the map, however Echo Fox upped the tempo around the twenty minute mark with a fast Baron take. When the teamfights started, the FOX lineup was far more synergetic than their opponents, constantly playing on the razor's edge but always managing to get unpunished. They're pretty clean in their execution, and their aggression is quite challenging to take on.

Both teams are incredibly strong in the early game, however it is the Echo Fox squad that pulls ahead in the mid game with a ~1.4k gold lead on average. Cloud9 are no slouches in the macro department and they tend to focus quite a lot on objectives, being the first to take down all three outer turrets. They also have exquisite dragon, Herald and Baron stats, in fact they have some of the best statistics in the League overall.

Echo Fox and Cloud9 already squared off against each other not so long ago and that bloodbath went in Echo Fox's favor after a lot of back-and-forth action. Cloud9 took the early lead with a quick first blood on Fenix's cassiopeia, however Echo Fox stayed close in gold as best they could. A fantastic Baron bait around the twenty minute mark allowed FOX to flex their teamfighting muscles and swing the game back in their favor. Things then went into full fiesta mode as Echo Fox baited Baron for multiple times in a row, eventually losing it to a clutch Svenskeren steal. Echo Fox scaled better and eventually, after quite a lot of hard work managed to destroy the opposing Nexus.

They need to put Dardoch on an initiator, and Huni on a late game pick like Gnar or Gankplank. If they manage to maneuver the draft in their favor and get the picks they need they should have the edge once again, however after seeing just how close the last game was, we're not betting with certainty here - far from it.

While Cloud9 probably have more synergy (due to the sheer fact that they've been playing longer as a unit) and the better, more clutch midlaner in Jensen, the Echo Fox roster has quite a high number of threats as well. Huni is a world class top laner and has proven his worth on more than one occasion, Dardoch is one of the best junglers in the region and their bottom lane is quite a frightening one, with Adrian playing almost anything and Altec being incredibly dexterous on every AD carry while also maintaining fantastic damage numbers however he's pretty lackluster in the laning phase and his damage share - when compared to his competition - isn't that impressive.

We're going with the underdogs here, at least from a betting standpoint. It's not going to be close, it's not going to be pretty but Echo Fox have the tools to win this. Whether or not that happens remains to be seen, so bet a small amount just in case Cloud9 come out of the gates with vengeance in mind.