If you consider yourself a fan of drafts, you are presented with two mutually exclusive options. You can either be a fan of Zikz or you can, even if only in the privacy of your own mind, admit you have no soul.

This is not a result of absolute dominance, but rather a pleasure obtained from the pondering of the choices made. Very rarely will you find a CLG draft that does not reward investing time on its deconstruction. As you dive into it, a consistent idea on how they are looking to play the match occupies the place of the usual succession of decently fitting meta picks.

However, more complex drafting is not without a price. Mistakes are unavoidable for humans, and looking for the optimal way to draft every match can often lead the coach to outplay himself. Zikz has proven himself not immune to such contingencies but, the more you look into his drafting, the more you find that the benefits heavily outweigh the risks.

These consistent advantages derive from a very strong application of the principles of drafting, as listed:

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 -        Identify the optimal playstyle for your team against the opponent you are facing.

-         Identify what the opponent is looking to play against you.

-         Build the style you identified for yourself while disrupting the opponent as much as possible.

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While these rules dictate most competitive drafts, they barely give any information on drafting to a curious reader. As with most things worthwhile, the devil is in the details. Execution of these ideas is everything, and diving into examples will better illustrate the concepts.

DRAFTING YOUR NATURAL STYLE

Often times, a certain playstyle will arise as the optimal much more frequently than others. The phenomenom usually springs from your own team’s strengths and weaknesses more so than what the opponent is looking to play.

Such is the case with CLG and splitpushing. Often looking to have HuHi roam to hide him from the laning phase, sidelanes will unavoidably be at an advantage. Albeit meta dependent, it is often the case that your optimal way to use this team trait is playing splitpush.

Pick compositions are one of the most dangerous to face if you are looking to play an open map. They usually feature heavy engage that thrives on number superiority, which is more or less what you give your opponent with your entire gameplan. It is clear that playing splitpush versus such a composition is asking for trouble.

In this draft, CLG look to disrupt the optimal pick composition for the opponent, while getting themselves their comfort splitpush plan.

Under this reasoning, CLG remove Malzahar and Camille from the pool. Lastly, the Rumble ban aims to make the Trundle and Poppy open picks. On top of that, combined with the Camille ban, only tanks and niche picks remain available in the toplane, heavily improving the Trundle as a splitpusher.

On the other side, C9 are looking to make a split push composition as weak as possible. With Varus removed, the strength of poke for CLG players greatly diminishes. Should CLG want strong poke, they would be forced to play the Jayce. This, paired with Stixxay’s lack of experience on Ziggs, would put CLG into a full AD compositions. With only tanks available on top lane, this is quite a daring compromise, and the Varus ban takes Jayce out of the table as well.

Even with many elements of a pick composition removed, the Leblanc ban comes through, responding both to Huhi’s predilection for roaming picks and the strength of Leblanc in the meta of the series. Because Rengar is open, Shen is a strong possible splitpusher. One of Shen’s weaknesses is the need for a delivery system in teamfights and, since both Graves and Rengar can work for this plan, C9 is forced to ban Shen.

Only one choice is interesting in this first pick phase: Lulu. First picking her makes Rengar into an absolute trash pick for C9. By drafting Lulu, CLG secures having the Rengar open on the next iteration. Even when no strong pick elements are available to be drafted, the cat still provides very good ganks either for or against a composition that’s looking to play split. Thanks to his ultimate, no meta jungler can outrotate him when looking for a midgame gank.

For this part of the draft C9 are completely on the defensive. Because CLG are taking the Rengar, C9 is looking to pick a composition that can outscale their opponents while staying safe. As we will see, this outscaling will be removed from the realm of possibilities.

So far, we can see the principles applied clearly by CLG. They want to play splitpush, they know their opponent will look to build a pick composition and they do everything in their hands to avoid this, successfully so.

C9 find themselves now with the hard choice of who will they be facing as a splitpusher, and who will they match it with. This is, by far, the most critical point of the entire draft for C9. Because  Trundle and Poppy are threats that need to be addressed, the splitpushers become too many for C9 to ban away.

It is hard to argue that the decisions made by the 9 squad are not a clear mistake. We need to dive deeper into them to understand why.

Picking a tank is almost unavoidable for them. Impact has only played tanks this split. C9 have too low waveclear up to this point (Graves, Ezreal) to draft a good 1-3-1 with no tank. Combined with their classic problems on midgame proactiveness, playing no tank becomes a really awkward path. Their best shot seems to be at outscaling CLG.

The big draft breaker is not banning Trundle. It’s true that Fiora is certainly dangerous. Having forfeited the Rengar in favor of Graves, and looking to pick a tank, skirmishes in the top lane become specially dangerous. Knowing that CLG is looking to snowball their top side for a clear splitpush advantage, I can see how this becomes a scary situation that can quickly get out of hand.

Still, drafting Maokai with the king of trolls open is undefendable: He is a champion that performs better against Maokai at every single point in the game for a little less risk in the earlygame. This is an extremely poor trade off. Even more so, because of Trundle’s Subjugate, there is no outscaling him in teamfights.

The whole point of drafting a tank was to allow a passive composition to scale, but we can see clearly that this is not the case. I this toplane collapse, it’s apparent to the viewer that Maokai will be no tank come the 5v5 teamfights.  Maokai can’t outteamfight Trundle, can’t hold the splitpush, and he can’t win the early lane. Why was he drafted?

Yes, I know Ekko is drafted to deal with Trundle on the splitpush. No, it is not enough. Trading a midlaner carry for a tank is pretty bad if you are looking to keep CLG from the four-man siege. Not only do they have a very strong midgame, but they are also playing a submarine composition (Orianna and Rengar). Maokai offers little protection when getting engaged onto, and even less waveclear, giving plenty of chances for CLG to force favorable engages.

Whichever lane Ekko is not at will bleed for C9, and the longer the game goes the more Trundle will outscale Maokai, as he literally feeds on the tree. CLG have successfully drafted for their game plan while disrupting their opponents’, and to such an extent that C9 are left with very slim win conditions. Had they better executed the principles of drafting, they would have taken away Trundle on the second ban phase and heavily disrupted CLG’s plan, putting their no tank composition on a 35 minutes date of expiration.

PLAYING A COUNTER COMPOSITION

As established before, while styles often arise naturally, some matchups just demand you play into the opponent’s plan. Even if you are not playing your comfortable style, there is a lot of value into countering an opponent’s composition, should you know what or how he is going to play.

This is the biggest problem with predictability and single-styled teams. As we’ve explored before, Echo Fox certainly love to be aggressive in the earlygame. This being a predictable trait, it makes sense for CLG to approach the game with a composition that heavily punishes such choices

For this game, CLG choose a composition with safe mid and bottom lanes, combined with a heavy tank on the top lane. In this manner, they outscale Fox and punish fishing for ganks with very ungankable lanes. While the top lane is definitely gankable, tank matchups are famously not very snowbally, and Nautilus can perform his duties even when behind.

We should credit both teams for their bans, as they are pretty spot on. While CLG takes away Fox’s stronger roam oriented supports, Fox looks to eliminate safe comfort picks and a very annoying Thresh. While Thresh is not on CLG’s plans, on a world where Fox is looking to snowball the early game from early kills, Thresh is a very reasonable champion to take away from known shotcaller and playmaker Aphromoo.

Nevertheless, we already know how this works. The devil is in the details. The detail prefacing Zikz’s plan is actually the Graves ban. Graves is not particularly dangerous on the hands of an aggressive early game team., why was it banned?

This ban, when thought coldly about, responds to a more nuanced game plan. Graves is a very well-known pick into Rengar, but too greedy for CLG’s game plan of a safe earlygame. Banning him  plays into thejungler revival of Olaf. Back at the last world championship, the Viking was one of the most contested picks. Albeit the reasons for him falling out of favor do not concern this article, he remains the strongest early to midgame jungler duelist by a fair margin.

By banning the Graves away, CLG beautifully work many fronts. They ensure being able to outscale Echo Fox, they make the rengar pick look golden and tempting and, perhaps the most important point, they conduct Fox away from a kite composition.

One of the main concerns of picking Olaf is the fact that you need a form of engage. While most certainly not the most common way of achieving it, drafting Olaf into a composition that is looking to engage you is a very decent solution to this issue. Getting jumped onto is, in a weird way, also a form of engage.

From here on out, the picks are pretty straightforward for CLG. Picking a safe mid and bottom lane with good scaling, they look to protect their top with a heavy Olaf presence. In a purely 2v2 scenario, Olaf Nautilus can confidently beat most of the picks available for Fox. This makes the early discussed scenario of Nautilus getting camped even less likely.

The second round bans is, as per usual, all about disruption. Anivia is a heavy counterpick to Olaf, and incentivizes a passive playstile and a kite composition. Since CLG don’t have any real engage tools, and Froggen is an excellent Anivia player, this ban is pretty necessary to make the composition work. A similar reasoning applies to the Rumble, who provides heavy temfight and kite potential, as well as snowball from the top lane. Definitely two picks CLG have to avoid at all costs.

As far as Fox’s draft goes, some holes can definitely be found. Banning Jayce away definitely makes sense, since you would usually expect CLG to play a splitpush composition, and they have not revealed much at this point. While hints exist that point to a non splitpush composition, this choice can hardly be considered a mistake, as this is still a reasonable possibility on Fox’s minds. You really can’t expect people to read a draft in the moment as it is done with plenty of available time and no pressure.

However, Syndra is hardly justifiable. HuHi is usually known for roaming midlaners, and CLG have no pick elements to their composition. Banning away an immobile pick based midlaner, when you are looking to draft Shen with your Rengar, really doesn’t make much sense. This choice is definitely hard to defend.

Nevertheless, even when both are hard to justify, the real problem lies within the choice of midlaner. Viktor makes little to no sense as a last pick. It is most definitely challenging seeing this pick as anything other than a mistake. Fox is already heavily invested into splitpushing with Shen and having pick potential, Viktor does absolutely nothing for their composition.

Yes, Viktor scales phenomenally and he gets a free pass on laning against Huhi’s Vladimir. This is a positive. And sure, he is a very strong teamfighter. Sadly, his teamfight comfort doesn’t fit Fox’s gameplan. Viktor shines when getting engaged onto, and CLG have already shown very little engage tools.

Moreover, since Shen is definitely being used for split push, Viktor falls absolutely flat as your four-man midlane. He has neither good pick potential nor harass under turret. Ironically, Syndra would have been a far more solid choice as Fox’s last pick.

I feel forced to note that the advantage of the composition is not well reflected on the game, as Keith gets caught extremely out of position, making the composition just a background problem.

We see at this point that Echo Fox barely have the tools for a solid win condition.  Decent pick potential against a composition drafted to counter it. Some kite tools, but no engage on CLG. Some splitpush, but almost no pressure from the midlane. They have a strong temfight, but mixed styles. Viktor and Zyra want to kite while Rengar and Shen are looking to dive. It really does look grim for Fox.

Nevertheless, this dichotomy in game plans gives CLG a reasonable pass on their early to midgame. As counter engage tools do very little versus CLG, they ultimately destroy Fox come late game. This would not have been the case if Fox had stronger kiting, but their composition is all over the place. Remember that Zikz actively took away Graves and Rumble, precisely to avoid this possibility.

By this point, I really can’t be the only one fawning over the choices. I’m most certainly not one to judge ideas by results, and I can see the most critical readers forming the idea of a bias of success in their heads.

This is actually something working on the opposing direction. In order for me to illustrate how strongly Zikz can execute principled drafting, I’m actively going for drafts that were he has dominated the opposing team. When your draft is heavily set up for success, victory is simply the most likely outcome.

Any reader that, at this point, does not have a Zikz shaped hole in his heart, should really start concerning himself with an alternative way to access any kind of mall.

Don’t worry, there is still plenty of time to turn around.

DISRUPTION GALORE

Perhaps the most subtle principle of drafting is disruption. Since snatching a pick often makes your composition too awkard, disruption is more often than not executed on the ban phase. As this is usually not addressed by casters and, honestly, skipped in favor of simply watching the game, it rarely gets showcased. Let’s try and compensate for that by taking a look at some second ban phases.

Although Reapered learned from the first game, and chose to take away the Trundle, threats are never ending by CLG. C9 overplays their hand with a “flex” Jayce that has very little flexibility.

Because Sneaky has no competitive experience on Ziggs, the Jayce pick gives C9 two choices. Either playing no tank (and no engage), or playing a full AD composition. Both these choices scale pretty poorly and, whichever game plan C9 have, they will be pressed for time.

Abusing this, Zikz chooses to ban away every heavy engage toplaner available, forcing Cloud 9 into panic mode. It is no secret that they’ve struggled to play an open map in the past, and the “flex” was only intended as a tool to make CLG go for a weaker splitpusher.

With no hard engage, it is not enough for Reapered’s boys to get ahead early, they have to execute on a very complicated earlygame plan if they ever wish to win the game.  Keep in mind that going Ahri mid and Jayce top would, by no means, be a bad composition; but it would certainly be very hard to execute for a team with the weaknesses Cloud nine has showcased.

The rest of the draft is honestly pretty messy. Viktor, again, achieves very little in a composition that is looking to force plays and win early. Renekton does not provide enough engage for C9, and him being a tank is not all that relevant if we take into account how heavily outscaled they are by CLG.

Very little can be said about Jayce ADC. Botlane being starved for experience doesn’t match well with an AD caster (more dependent on levels that a conventional ADC), especially not one that maxes his first ability at level eleven.

These panic choices leave heavy snowball from the toplane as the only winning line of play for Cloud 9. Even then, with a midlaner that struggles to engage and a level starved AD caster, I would not bet for them going into this game.

Don’t be fooled by C9’s poor draft adaptability, ways to play around this kind of disruption exist, and this is a good example of it

With every meta AD jungler banned and Rumble picked for their opponents, CLG target the physical damage midlane pool. Since Flyquest is playing Caitlyn, they are now forced into either playing a siege composition or having almost no physical damage up until the thirty minute mark.

While FLY certainly has good elements for a siege composition, several problems arise when choosing that game plan. For starters, CLG would most certainly snatch away the Gragas, leaving them with no actual tank in their composition. On top of that, they would have to most likely commit the Jayce to holding the Shen push anyway, as Rumble has a very hard time doing so after the laning phase.

If this were not enough, because CLG have Ashe, they can easily go Gragas combined with Syndra/Ahri. This would give CLG strong pick potential against a siege composition with no tank. We’ve covered before how strong pick composition are when playing an open map. Too many factors make the Jayce pick too dangerous and hard to execute.

Flyquest makes the correct choice by picking Gragas, but they are far from ahead in the draft. With so many magic damage based champions, Jayce gets an extremely efficient build path with Mercury Threads and Hexdrinker. The same is true for Shen.

Even when CLG is definitely ahead from the draft, both teams correctly identify their win conditions and heavily focus the bot lane. The success of CLG’s plan depends on Caitlyn not getting fed and abusing her midgame damage slump, and the vod clearly reflects both teams heavily playing around the bottom lane.

It’s neither the point of this article to consider every mistake in draft made by CLG’s opponents nor is this necessary to understand how drafts are shaped by the execution of the principles.

We now have a more clear image on how a superior understanding and execution of the principles can see the opponents consistently forced on their back foot. Most of us will now enjoy drafts at a deeper level. And some, I hope, have gained a soul.

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Headline photo: LoL Esports