Following CLG's huge performance in their game against Curse in Day 1 of Week 3 of the North American LCS, they would be coming into their next game against XDG with an overwhelming amount of confidence in their play. XDG on the other hand, following their recent position change which placed Zuna in the jungle and Xmithie in the AD Carry role, had suffered a streak of several disappointing defeats leaving them with a record of 1-6 and a place at the bottom of the LCS standings. The different mindsets coming into this game could easily have been a deciding factor, with the somewhat disheartened vibe given off by XDG having to face all of the hype and confidence bursting out of Counter Logic Gaming's metaphorical backside after Doublelift and Chauster's huge turnaround performance in Saturday's game vs. Curse.

So, XDG had a mountain to climb ahead of them, but they managed to find success and take down CLG by slowing things down and taking their game one step at a time. Let's break down some of the factors that allowed the man who is still relatively new to the AD Carry role, Xmithie, to take down the behemoth of bottom lane, Doublelift.

The first step to achieving success was that XDG had done their research, and came into the game prepared for what they would face. They immediately took Vayne out of the picture as their first ban, not allowing Doublelift to get that staple champion he loves so much. For their second ban, XDG had seen the plays made by Chauster's Yasuo and wanted none of it, taking the Steel Tempest out of the equation. Finally, they decided that Vi's early gank presence made her too much of a jungle powerhouse to leave available, taking her away from Link. The members of CLG decided that their bans would be aimed mainly at cropping Zuna's pool of jungle champions taking out Olaf and Kha'zix as first and third ban respectively (The 7th Olaf ban Zuna had brought about against XDG) The second ban from CLG removed Kassadin from the hands of Mancloud.

Once all bans from both teams had been completed, XDG took the opportunity to land Elise into the hands of Zuna, one of the champions that he is comfortable on in his new jungle position. CLG quickly responded by picking up Caitlyn and Gragas, a champion known for his strength in both the mid lane and the jungle. XDG picked up Renekton for Benny in the top lane and secured Thresh to put into the hands of Bloodwater for the fourth time this split. Nien secured Dr. Mundo for the CLG top lane, and Annie was locked in as support. Still not knowing whether Gragas would be played in mid or in the jungle, XDG took the opportunity to grab themselves one of the most highly-prioritized mid lane assassins, LeBlanc. XDG also put lore-related hatred aside and secured Lucian to lane with Thresh to take on the DoubleMoo. Finally, Chauster was secured Ziggs to piece together both of the teams' compositions.

With every champion locked in, strategies in place and both teams ready to go, XDG and CLG took to the rift. XDG's teamcomp featured three very strong frontline champions (Renekton, Elise and Thresh) and a shared playstyle that would allow XDG to be exceptional at bullying their opponents early and then catching out and picking off stragglers later on in the game. CLG on the other hand brought a huge teamfight presence ot the table, with masses of AoE damage available from Gragas, Annie and Ziggs. The early game tower pressure that CLG possessed was far superior to that of XDG, and they hoped to push that advantage as much as possible.

By the time minions had spawned, all players had taken up their respective positions on the map; there would be no laneswaps or 2v1 lanes, just standard 1-1-2 lanes with both junglers starting at their blue buff. However, this gave XDG the advantage as Aphromoo and Doublelift understandably didn't want to fall behind a Lucian/Thresh lane early, Link's Gragas was left to take his blue buff solo, leaving him slightly behind Zuna in clear speed. This did not stop Bloodwater from playing very aggressively, though, walking in front of the minions to harass his opponents with the empowered auto-attack passive of Flay, and forcing them to back away, miss experience, and give up the early level 2 to the bottom lane of XDG. Less than 3 minutes into the game this advantage became apparent as Bloodwater practically rammed himself down a level 1 Aphromoo's throat, burning ignite and removing a large chunk of Annie's laning threat, leaving her with under 200hp remaining.

As Thresh and Lucian is a bottom lane combo with a huge amount of dueling and zoning power, XDG took it upon themselves to take complete control of the bottom lane, particularly the lane bush closest to CLG's turret. They knew not to be afraid of any potential Gragas ganks, as before level 6 Gragas does not pose an incredible threat through ganks, and as they had taken Aphromoo to low health early he could not pull off any risky plays. The safety of the XDG bottom lane was also a huge factor in why they were able to play so up-front; with Lucian having an in-built dash, Flash available as well as the Lantern (Dark Passage) from Thresh, the potential to be caught out by a low-cc gank was slim-to-none.

XDG did not let up the bottom lane aggression, using the Lucian/Thresh "Wifesteal" combo to its full potential to bully the CLG bottom lane, almost every time Bloodwater had cooldowns at his disposal. By the 7:20 mark, CLG's blue buff had respawned and was secured by Link, giving him the all important level 6 on his jungle Gragas. He immediately roamed towards bottom as Bloodwater was stunned by Aphromoo, with Doublelift flashing forwards to provide DPS and forcing the return Flash from Bloodwater. In turn, Aphromoo flashes forward to put Exhaust down onto Thresh, as Gragas flashes forward to land a Barrell Roll, and the kill is picked up by an Annie autoattack, but wastes the Explosive Cask from Link.

The first blood onto Aphromoo stemmed from Bloodwater going slightly overboard in his dives and taking a little too much damage, as well as not respecting the presence of the freshly level 6 jungle Gragas (although the Explosive Cask was essentially wasted). The 3 methods of escape mentioned earlier only apply to Lucian, as only one of these abilities, Flash, is available for Thresh to use, and thus Bloodwater was caught off guard by the triple Flash and Exhaust thrown at him by CLG.

With all of the excitement and action happening in the bottom lane, Zuna took the opportunity to sneak into the already pushed top lane and wait for his chance to strike from the bush. As Mancloud applies pressure in the middle lane, and Link preoccupied in the bottom lane, there is nobody to stop the towerdive onto Nien. Zuna lands a cocoon under the CLG tower and follows up with the percentage health damage from Venomous Bite. Benny tanks the damage from the tower using Dominus and XDG follow up on the dive to land a return kill onto Nien.

With the knowledge that Link was down in the bottom lane, and Chauster was being harassed under his tower by Mancloud out of range of the Mega Inferno Bomb, there was no possible place for any help to come from to assist Nien in survivng the two man dive from Renekton and Elise. Both of the champions XDG used to dive deal a large chunk of percentage health magic damage (Elise with the Venomous Bite/Neurotoxin dealing % of maximum and missing health and Renekton's Dominus dealing % of maximum hp per second), which shredded though Dr. Mundo faster than he could regenerate, as Nien had rushed a Sunfire Cape to help him lane against Benny. Couple this with the healing reduction from Ignite and it meant a tower dive in which Dr. Mundo cannot go where he pleases.

With all of the summoner spells burnt from CLG's bottom lane, the XDG bot lane decided to bide their time and wait for Level 6. As luck would have it, Aphromoo walked a little too close to ward the lane bush and was immediately hooked, flayed and boxed in by Thresh. Xmithie used The Culling to deal damage to Annie from a safe distance, avoiding Doublelift's damage and not missing a single shot as Annie fell. Ziggs and Gragas tried to roam to clean up in the bottom lane but Zuna was waiting, and chunked Link enough to force him away and rotate to take the first Dragon kill of the game, followed by a Zuna dropping the mid lane to pick up an easy kill on Chauster alongside Mancloud giving XDG a 3-1 score and a 1.8k gold lead.

Undiscouraged by giving up first blood, the XDG bottom lane continued to apply heavy pressure onto the CLG bottom lane, and capitalized immediately when a slight mistake was made. However, as XDG came freshly from base, they had the resources and team support necessary to force the rest of CLG away and rotate as a team to secure a global objective after tying the game score 2-1, then send two back to mid lane to pick off Chauster and further extend their lead.

Despite this, the bottom lane from XDG did not recall after taking Dragon, consequently taking a lot of damage from the bottom lane of CLG, and were forced to recall and lost their first outer turret following a nice rotation from Link. As CLG backed away to recall, Zuna, Bloodwater and Xmithie attempt to answer back with some turret pressure of their own, but are effortlessly held back by the wave clear from Link's Gragas.

As mentioned earlier, Caitlyn and Annie's long range auto attacks coupled with the wave clear from Gragas allowed CLG to put the tower pushing teamcomp to good use and remove the first tower from the map.

A little over 14 minutes into the game, Doublelift overextends past the river to farm some minions and is caught out by a Death Sentence from Bloodwater. This results in an all-in attempt which was quickly scrambled as Tibbers made an appearance on top of Bloodwater's head. The Culling was blocked by an uncleared wave of CLG minions, and as Thresh flashed over the wall to escape, Doublelift's Caitlyn followed suit, both under 200hp, but the Barrier came out for Doublelift, allowing him time to get off 2 more autoattacks and pick up the kill, despite the heroic flash forward from Xmithie. The kill onto Bloodwater just tipped Doublelift over the experience level to hit level 9, and the bonus lifesteal from The Bloodthirster was almost enough to turn around the second kill onto Lucian, but proved not to be enough as Doublelift fell to Xmithie, who was then in turn finished off by Aphromoo. XDG decided to go for a 2-man push onto Nien and the top lane tower of CLG and managed to take it down, followed by a dive onto Nien, but this was returned by CLG grouping up with the 3 remaining members and pushing down the blue side middle outer tower.

After the engage onto Caitlyn, the XDG bottom lane combo realised the turnaround potential of a well placed Tibbers, and began to back away, but not before Bloodwater is stunned by Annie. Xmithie's The Culling does not find his mark, but does happen to clear a large wave of minions, which may well have unintentionally been the deciding factor in him picking up the kill onto Doublelift before dying himself, as he went extremely low before landing the killing blow. Mancloud attempted to roam down to clean up Aphromoo but backed away, leaving the CLG tower pushing team to roll into force once again and remove the middle tower from the map, as Zuna and Benny forced Nien away from his own tower, only to come back and kill him, trading outer turrets and closing the gold lead to a slightly smaller amount of 1.4k gold.

The XDG bottom lane returned to push out the lane, and with no members of CLG around to defend against the push they pick up an easy second turret for themselves, leaving only two outer turrets standing (XDG top and CLG mid). All 5 members of both teams rotate towards the bottom of the map as dragon would be spawning in a very short time as XDG takes the superior position in front of the Dragon pit, having a good amount of the CLG jungle warded. However teamfighting against the CLG teamcomp is a dangerous prospect, and they use this to their advantage as they brute force their way into the better position, forcing XDG to retreat up river towards the middle lane. CLG gains confidence as a hook from Bloodwater misses and they begin to attack the dragon, but are forced away by a perfectly placed The Culling from Xmithie. This gives Zuna's Elise the room needed to use the execute from Venomous Bite/Neurotoxin in conjunction with Smite to burst down the Dragon, and escape without any real engage attempts from either team.

CLG were caught out of position, with Doublelift farming in the top lane and Aphromoo recalling after pushing through the middle lane, gaving Xmithie and Bloodwater the time needed to push down the last few hundred hitpoints of the bottom lane outer tower. As all members of both teams respawned they began to group around the bottom lane, with XDG having placed some wards in the CLG jungle giving them a huge vision advantage for the upcoming Dragon dance. This vision allows them to see the 5 man CLG push onto them, with the Annie stun ready to drop, and back away to regain the positioning required for Xmithie to lay down the suppressing fire onto CLG that allowed the Dragon to be picked up by Zuna, securing a 2.4k gold lead for XDG.

XDG are looking strong, with good rotations and excellent skirmishing to avoid the full all-in potential from CLG. How well will they be able to maintain composure and not crumble before the lategame monster that is Doublelift's Caitlyn? Will the lure of Baron Nashor be too strong to resist? Read more in-depth analysis on XDG's victory in Part 2 of "XDG avoids Rush Hour."