It’s been two years since the original match-up and now everything is coming full circle. Two years ago on March 8th, 2013, Gambit Gaming took on CJ Entus Frost in the IEM World Championship. A lot has changed over the years between both teams, and while they may not sit in as high a throne as they did previously, they are starting make their way back to the top. IEM Katowice could take either of these teams back towards their former glory.
Two years ago the IEM World Championships during Season 3 were held. At the time Gambit and CJ Frost were some of the most highly touted teams. Gambit were dominating at the end of Season 2, having all of the original members of M5: Darien, Diamond, Alex Ich, Genja, and Edward. Frost had a legendary lineup including current CJ stars Madlife and Shy along with Woong, Rapidstar, and CloudTemplar.
While times have changed, I think there’s a few things that we can pull from the previous match-up that might still hold true. First off, Diamond is still Diamond. What I mean by that is, Diamond still wants to innovate in the jungle and bring in unexpected strategies and picks. Just this past week we saw Diamond pull out Evelynn probably the first time since her nerfs. It didn't work out too well, but it still shows that Diamond will pull out anything regardless of what is considered meta at the time.
Second, while Gambit’s lineup has changed quite a bit, they still have the same “See Hero, Kill Hero” mentality. Gambit has always and still does thrive when the game is put into pure chaos. As soon as a team loses control of a situation, Gambit will get rolling and it’s hard to stop them.
CJ knows how to counter this pretty well though as they showed. In 2013, CJ tried to beat Gambit at their own game and swapped their bottom lane into the mid lane in order to starve out Alex Ich on Kha’Zix. The combination of Lulu and Ezreal zoned Kha’Zix out from getting any kind of farm. Similarly to how lane swaps work in today’s meta. The difference here being, no one had really tried doing this, it was completely new and out of the blue and caught Gambit by surprise. CJ gave Rapidstar (on Gragas) blue buff to start and sent him bottom to just grab what farm he could with barrels while they zoned out Kha mid.
Looking towards this years match-up, Gambit lacks a lot of the star power they used to have. Alex Ich left and Gambit have yet to find anyone that can replace him consistently. P1noy has been doing well and so has Cabochard, but it’s pretty apparent that Gambit is still adjusting in some ways. Diamond is going to have to really pressure the map well in their game.
I think the early game will play a huge part in what this game ultimately turns into. CJ has a much more in-depth strategic mind that shows in their games, but they have the tendency to fall apart if their early game goes south. Space can tilt and Ambition has his games where he doesn't do a whole lot. If Gambit can take advantage of these weaknesses they might pull an upset.
On the other side of the coin you have two of the strongest solo laners in the scene at the moment in Shy and CoCo. Both are having MVP seasons and while Cabochard has been doing well in his own right, I’m not sure if he can handle Shy on his own, and I can say pretty confidently that I think Betsy will be having his on issues in the mid lane. CJ needs to play up the fact that their top and mid are incredibly strong by comparison and have Space and Ambition just play supporting roles as CoCo and Shy carry.
Overall it should be a good match and I’m looking forward to how both teams try and handle each other since they’re not from the same region and don’t have the experience fighting each other. A lot of unique and clashing strategies could be pulled out.
