Over the course of a forty minute game, Counter Logic Gaming comprehensively beat Moscow 5 in the finals for the MSI Beat It Tournament, over in Sweden for Dreamhack. They take away the forty thousand dollar prize, and cement themselves as one of the foremost League of Legends teams in the world.
Throughout the game they never seemed properly threatened, even with a last minute Kassadin pick by M5 to counter their mid Karthus. There were a few attempts early on to shut down with Kassadin’s Rift Walk, but it wasn’t until seven or eight minutes in before the first blood went to CLG on the top lane. Apart from a quick altercation in CLG’s jungle, where it went 2-1 to CLG, things got conservative very quickly, with M5 trying to hunker down and farm without giving away more kills.
It never really swung back in their favour though, as their defensive play meant that CLG had control over dragon by the time either team was capable of taking it down, and things continued to snowball from there. With Karthus’ ult mopping up any stragglers after team fights, top lane started to get pushed hard, leaving CLG with an opportunity to take Baron, even with just one player down on M5’s side. Regardless, with the power of that buff they got to push mid hard, taking out both second and third towers, leaving the inhibitor under threat.
While M5 managed to defend for a while like this, they didn’t have the farm or experience to properly match CLG, toe to toe, and the constant pushing meant that first their mid inhibitor, and then the last two top towers went down, leaving them open to repeated teamfights that they just couldn’t win.
After a few out of position ganks on M5’s Irelia, CLG mopped up the rest of the game to close it just after it hit forty minutes, securing the game and the title, and taking home the big prize. Congratulations to Counter Logic Gaming.