League Comprehensive History: How good is CJ Frost right now?

If you've followed League of Legends and its professional scene, its hard not be aware of CJ Frost. The team, along with its sister team CJ Blaze, has a history of being one of the oldest and most prestigious League of Legends teams in the Korean scene of OGN. For those in the west, you probably remember them for taking 2nd in the second World Championships after losing to TPA.

The Old Kings

In Korea, CJ Frost are essentially one of the most popular teams in Korea along with SKT T1 K. They are essentially perceived as the "Old Kings", a team who has performed consistently well in the competitive scene since its creation. They won the first OGN (back when they were known as MiG Frost), and have historically placed highly in the brackets (only since OGN Winter 2013 have they fallen below 4th place); Up until a few seasons ago, there was not a single final without a CJ team-Blaze or Frost were always in the finals.

Left to Right: Shy, Rapidstar, Madlife, Woong, Cloudtemplar

The most popular line up of Frost consisted of:

• Top-Shy
• Jungle-Cloudtemplar
• Mid-Rapidstar
• ADC-Woong
• Support-Madlife 

(This was the team who recently played in the "All-Stars" match against EDG a month ago.)

The Fall of Frost

Frost has been traditionally a "Season 2 team", which means it was a team who excelled at teamfighting, and preferred champions who farmed heavily, and tried to draw the game out to late, and win through superior teamfighting. The style was similar to that of then CLG.eu.

Unfortunately the meta-shifts have not boded well for the members of the team, and they have not adapted especially well. After the Season 2 world championships, their roster began to fall apart. It began with the departure of the "Tank ADC" Woong. Woong was not tauted to be a great mechanical ADC, and many perceived his replacement by Hermes to be something that would make Frost stronger.

The original Frost roster is begins to fall off

It was then that Rapidstar, the midlaner began to fall off. Rapidstar's champion pool consisted of heavy farm and slow moving mages such as Karthus, Anivia, and the occasional Diana. With the shift of the meta towards emphasizing early and mid game, Rapidstar had trouble adapting to the new champions. After a few subpar performances, Rapidstar was replaced by GankedbyMom, known as the world's greatest Orianna.

Then,  in the middle of Season 3, Cloudtemplar, the world's greatest "Herbivore jungler" left the team to pursue a career in casting. Cloudtemplar is perceived as one of the Korean scene's most articulate and intelligent players (hence his easy transition into casting). In fact, you can make the argument that his preferred champion pool helped define Frost's gameplay. Cloudtemplar was well known for playing junglers who had great teamfight potential and tanky stats: such as Amumu, Rammus, Skarner, and is known for his jungle Shen. Essentially, having a jungler who offered low pressure prior to 6 but strong pressure post-6 defined how the Frost lanes would play- they would try to play safe until Cloudtemplar hit 6, and then try to force teamfights after that. Cloudtemplar's playstyle and role on the team was unique, and when he left, Frost could not find an adequate replacement.

The Rebuilding

Late Season 3 and Early Season 4, Frost was not performing very well. Their original strengths were made obsolete and unattainable due to meta-shifts and roster changes. Frost was looking for a new identity.

There were three roles that were constantly changing: Mid, Jungle, and ADC.

In the Mid lane, Rapidstar's replacement Ganked by Mom wasn't performing up to par. In addition, his lack of a champion pool was problematic, as the enemy could easily force him into certain champions. He could essentially play Orianna, and Zed, and the rest of his champion pool was not as impressive. Frost picked up veteran player Maknoon, but unfortunately he wasn't able to perform adequately either.

In the Jungle, CJ Blaze's jungler Helios moved over to Frost to replace Cloudtemplar. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to be the playmaker that Frost needed to be successful, often being unable to make plays and forced to gank or cover lanes. He was later replaced by Lira, who had similar problems.

In bot lane, Woong had been replaced by Hermes, but was quickly replaced by Space after a few poor performances. Space began as a very aggressive player, but later began to play in a style similar to Najin Sword's Pray- who focused on synchronized play with the rest of the team.

This was Frost's roster for a bit. (Left to right): Shy, Rapidstar, Madlife, Ganked by Mom, Helios, Maknoon, Space

Frost had an issue of weak mid laners and junglers, which allowed for enemies to take huge advantages over them in early and mid game. While Frost was still able to make it out of groups occasionally through a lucky match up against weaker groups, they were unable to reach their former glory.

At the start of Spring 2014, Frost dropped its midlaners and junglers in favor of new players newly released from Korean team Xenic's Storm: Coco and Swift. The pair had strong synergy (important for Mid and Jungle) and were able to carry Xenics Storm through several games.

The new roster consisted of:

• Top-Shy
• Jungle-Swift
• Mid- Coco
• ADC- Space
• Support- Madlife

This new roster has changed Frost's identity greatly.

A New Identity

The addition of Coco and Swift changed CJ Frost's identity greatly. Given the aggression of Coco and Swift, the whole field of play changed.

Coco, the mage carry.

Coco is a very aggressive and mechanically skilled player. His Kassadin (named Cocodin) was reputed for good reason, and he holds one of the highest KDA's in the game because of it. His repitoire seems to consist of Kassadin (pre-rework), Nidalee, Ziggs, and Leblanc. His play has been on point, and he often makes plays with the support of the jungler swift. So far, he is probably one of the best players on Frost's roster.

Swift, the playmaker

Similarly, Swift is also a very aggressive player. Unlike the other junglers of Frost, he prefers to play aggressive junglers who invade and kill the enemy jungler: such as Lee Sin and Kha'ziks. His Lee Sin play is to be feared, as he has the Insec kick down to a tee, and his picks have won them games. He and his partner Coco have essentially carried games for Frost by applying enormous pressure. He often aids top lane and gets Shy rolling, and has made Mundo a terrible pick against Frost due to their skill in diving Mundo early game.


Perhaps due to the amount of pressure being placed by the Jungler and Mid lane, Shy has begun to awaken in top lane. Shy has been considered one of Korea's greatest top laners along with his equivalent on Blaze, Flame. During the early season, he struggled to carry on Mundo and the other tanky top laners, but as of late he has found his place on Shyvana, and the revitalized Jax. In essence, he has hit "Flame-status", by getting several kills on the enemy team early, and then reaching a massive CS lead, while also pushing down all the top towers and solo-killing the enemy top laner or jungler.

Despite what you might expect, Bot-lane is probably Frost's least exciting lane. They are not necessarily bad, but they aren't necessarily strong either. Part of the reason is Frost often neglects its bot lane, preferring to use the jungler to snowball top and mid lane early on. This means that Space and Madlife will often choose to farm safely in fear of being ganked. Madlife, though known for hi clutch plays, is not especially active in the early game. The ADC, Space has recently discovered talent in playing Jinx as well as Twitch, but often falls behind in farm from being zoned out. Frost's botlane isn't often seen dominating the lane with aggression, and will usually not make plays unless they have support nearby.

These new changes have shifted Frost's focus and gameplay from a late-game and teamfight focused team to an early/mid-game focused team who focuses on ganks and picks.

Recent Performance

Frost has had one season with this roster, both in Champions and in Masters. In Masters Frost has not lost a game since Week 3, when they lost against SKT TI K. They have an upcoming series against Samsung, who they have a losing record against. However, winning in masters isn't considered very telling, as it doesn't give circuit points; as a result, teams often don't take it as seriously.

In OGN Spring 2014, they were placed in Group B, made up of generally weak teams, and placed second in the group, only dropping two games to Samsung Ozone. They made it out of groups in second place. Subsequently, they were placed against Samsung Blue and lost in a 3-1 loss. They have recently dropped down to NLB, and managed to defeat SKT TI S in a 2-0. Later this week, they will play SKT TI K in a bout to determine who proceeds to the finals for NLB.

Its uncertain how strong CJ Frost is at the moment. For certain, no one believes that Frost in its current form is a dominating team. While they have had fantastic games against strong teams such as Ozone, Shield, and even beaten teams like SKT S, its apparent that they aren't fully cohesive yet.

Frost sometimes gets over eager.

Frost's Playstyle

Frost's playstyle is different from the teams of last season, in that they don't "control" games in the way that KTB or SKT does. Instead, their style relies on constant skirmishes and picks. Its a style that depends heavily on mechanical skill, and is actually quite risky- since a lost teamfight gives up a great deal of momentum.

Their team's success currently depends heavily on their midlaner and jungler providing a great deal of pressure early on- forcing the enemy jungler and midlaner to respond. This allows Shy to fight in a 1v1, and crush the enemy top laner in traditional CJ fashion- occasionally Swift will babysit the top lane to get Shy rolling.  When it comes to midgame, Frost depends heavily on small skirmishes to force picks and fights in their favor.

The name of the game is Picks. Take down a single champion then proceed to roll over objectives

Its an interesting style, but it relies heavily on their mechanics rather than decision making, and often relies on somewhat risky warding for map control (Madlife has been caught out several times due to this). Additionally, this is a style that is weak against teams who have very good map awareness and warding (a la Ozone and Blue).

Significance of Farming

I believe that Frost still depends on that winning teamfight, and still goes out of its way to prepare for it.

The interesting thing about Frost is that it will often isolate its carries, and send them to farm. This is quite often Shy in top lane, where he power shoves the lane and tries to outplay the enemy laner, but sometimes Space is left alone in botlane to farm, while the rest of the team does something else. Even when the lane is pushed in, Shy will still stay top lane, and similarly, Space will stay bottom to get the farm.

This is significant, because it means that Frost isn't aiming to merely take objectives through besieging the turrets. They want to take objectives through kills and skirmishes. In this sense, Frost is not an objective based team-they are still a teamfight oriented team.

Frost aims to win the game by having more gold, better teamfighting, and stronger champions. This is opposed to KTB last season, who would do their fast-push  strategy, focusing on taking objectives over kills.

CJ Frost vs. SKT TI K

If this was last season, I would say SKT 100%. But this season, CJ Frost has improved greatly, while SKT TI K is on tilt with Bengi, Impact, and Poohmandu performing much weaker than they did the season before.

The Fallen Kings(left to right) Piglet, Bengi, Poohmandu, Impact, Faker

As far as match-ups go. I believe it currently looks like this:

• Top Lane: Shy=Impact
• While Shy might get his beloved Jax, Impact has been playing well with Renekton (often perceived as the counter to Jax). I basically expect the lanes to be Shyvanna and Renekton so long as neither is banned out.
• Jungle: Swift > Bengi
• Its hard to argue with this one. Swift's performance and mechanics have been on point this season, while Bengi seems to be struggling. The Lee Sin will be the real contested pick here, Swift is very dangerous on it. Another pick that we might see is Kha'ziks.
• Midlane: Coco<Faker
• Coco has been performing very well, but Faker has been performing well despite how K has been doing. Coco wasn't able to stop Dade, and I believe it might be similar with Faker. However, if Faker does not rotate (unlikely) the lane may go even. I expect Coco to fall back on either Ziggs or Leblanc. Faker's champion pool is too large to be able to fully predict what he'll bring out.
• ADC: Space< Piglet 
•  As of late, Space has been preferring to use Jinx, a champion that Piglet doesn't really play, and while Jinx is very strong late game, she is not the greatest duelist champion. So if Piglet goes for Vayne and isn't punished for it, Piglet might win this match up. I also expect Twitch to be a contested pick out of both ADCs.
• Support: Madlife=Poohmandu
• The two supports have similar champion pools at this point, both preferring playmaking champions: Leona, Thresh, Zyra, Alistar. Currently, I don't believe there to be a large difference in skill level between these two.

Overall, in a best of 3, I believe it will end up a 2:1 in the favor of SKT K. Despite how far Frost has come, I believe that SKT K has a better sense of map control and team unity. With that said, if Frost is allowed their way, it could easily fall in Frost's favor.

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Strategic Analysis Outcome: League of Legends IEM- IG v. Fnatic

This is the second part of this article, and the test to see if my analysis was accurate. You may have issues following this if you aren't especially familiar with League of Legends or its meta.

The Laning Phase (less roaming, more CSing)

The game begins with IG deciding to swap their top lane with their bottom lane. They were aware that the standard lanes would give the advantage to Fnatic, and a swapped lane would be much more successful. Additionally, given that they had 2 people (Vayne and Thresh) against 1 person (Lulu), Wukong took the opportunity to steal the red buff. IG is recognizing that Fnatic needs to get a foothold early, and is playing to try and hold them down. 

Kassadin dying so early was very bad for Fnatic's strategy

The advantage is pressed further when Lulu is sent back at 3:33, and Kassadin dies to Yasuo at 3:50. This is critical because Kassadin is such a core to Fnatic's strength in the midgame. If he falls behind, they may not have the strong mid game they need to really control the match. Lulu dies to a dive at top at 4:00, which is further putting Fnatic behind.

However, Fnatic's botlane is able to take the first turret at 5:30, and the bot lane goes about trying to support the other lanes. They take the dragon at 8:35. It puts them up a bit, but they aren't as strong as they need to be going into midgame. This point in the game becomes troublesome for Fnatic, since IG starts to group as 4 and takes Fnatic's mid turret. They then begin to pressure the jungle (which is actually what Fnatic was hoping to do at this point in the game- but Fnatic fell too far behind early).

Fnatic tries to do their midgame strategy, and ganks bot with Nocturne and Kassadin, but due to a mix of being weaker and overchasing, they end up losing more than they gain. IG responds by invading the jungle as 4. They steal blue at 15 minutes, then red 3 minutes later.

tl;dr- IG lane swaps and aggressively  hold down Fnatic- denying Fnatic's midgame strength.

Midgame (dragons and outer/inner turrets)

At this point, Fnatic is in a lot of trouble. They aren't really able to fight a 5 man battle against IG, are extremely behind their lane equivalents, and are desperately losing map control (which makes it nigh impossible to splitpush). However, they do have something their opponents do not- siege defense and wave clear. Fnatic has the potential to turtle and play safe in order to get back into the game. 

However, when Fnatic notices IG's failure to pressure and take turrets (instead IG just tries to hold map control, and doesn't contest turrets- possibly due to Fnatic's siege defense) and the fact that IG began to split up- Fnatic took the opportunity to fight back. They kill Wukong, and take dragon at ~20 minutes. However, they lose members to an angry IG.

IG finds the fight they wanted.

IG groups and sits around the Baron pit at 23:05. When Fnatic comes to check (they need 5 men to contest baron), IG engages on them over the wall and gets the fight they want. They then proceed to take Baron, and kill the members of Fnatic who try to stop them. IG with Baron is incredibly strong.

IG actually splitpushes and takes out mid, top and bottom turrets in quick succession. Normally I would have thought Fnatic would have tried to engage when IG was split, but a baron buffed Shyvanna would be too hard to kill. 

tl;dr- Fnatic is really far behind. IG is winning the midgame due to their early game advantages.

Late game (Barons, Inhibs, Nexus)

Fnatic is really behind right now. IG has full control of the map, along with their stronger teamfight. However, if Fnatic is able to win a fight around this point, they have the potential of taking back the game. 

At 31minutes, IG tries to start baron, and Fnatic chooses to engage at that time. This is actually a very interesting fight since it isn't a standard 5v5 which IG would win at. Instead, it is 2 skirmishes. When Nocturne tries to steal Baron, IG's team becomes split up- part of the team peels off for a fight, the other part stays to try and take Baron. This confusion is what Fnatic needs and wants. 

Its more of a misplay of IG, but if Fnatic engineered this skirmish,
thene they are geniuses

• Lucian's ult onto baron confuses IG. Half of the team peel away from it and engage, while the other half decides to stay and try to take the buff. The main cause is due to Thresh catching onto Kassadin.
• When IG's Wukong, Thresh and Yasuo attack, they are knocked up by Lulu's ultimate, and then stunned by Annie's tibbers. 
• Meanwhile, Nocturne flashing in and trying to steal the Baron makes Shyvanna and Vayne turn their attention away from the engage.
• In essence, it becomes
• Nocturne vs. Vayne and Shyvanna
• Yasuo, Thresh, and Wukong (all chain stunned) vs. the rest of Fnatic
• Wukong panics when he notices that Nocturne had gone to steal Baron, and flashes into the pit trying to secure it. He does, but it leaves the fight as Yasuo and Thresh against 4 members of Fnatic.
• As expected, Yasuo and Thresh both fall, while Nocturne falls in the back
• The rest of IG decides to engage with their new baron buff. But at this point the fight is essentially even, and Fnatic survives with more members and take an objective. 

The fight is more of a mistake on the part of IG than anything. If they had chosen to all disengage and attack Fnatic, the fight would have probably turned out differently. But since they split, they weren't able to take advantage of their teamcomp. If they weren't already incredibly ahead, that fight would have been very in favor of Fnatic.

IG groups as 5 champions and tries to pressure mid. But the waves in bot and top are beginning to push in favor of Fnatic. They decide to split apart and shove top and bot. However this ends up being a mistake. Fnatic responds immediately by picking off Thresh with 5 champions, and takes a turret. Normally, you wouldn't expect this.

At 38:31, IG gets a bit desperate and tries to engage onto Annie in the jungle- just trying to start a fight. However, this isn't the best situation as he is melted before his team can respond. However, Fnatic sees the advantage of a 4v5 and walks right into the outstretched arms of 4 members of IG. The fight ends poorly for Fnatic due to the clever tactic and strength of IG. They proceed to take the mid turret and inhibitor.

The last fight actually comes from a surprising siege on bot turret by IG. Shyvanna no longer fears the turret and is willing to engage into a teamfight if Fnatic step up. Fnatic tries to burst down Shyvanna, but fails to take her down. The turret falls, and IG immediately engages in a fight.

tl;dr- Fnatic shows their veteran mental control in the late game. IG makes several mistakes and seem unsure of how to end the game, and Fnatic takes advantage of this confusion. However, IG was just too far ahead in terms of levels and strength that they were able to just brute strength win.

Observations/Analysis

This game was interesting because the two teams had such differing strengths, which really meant that they way they controlled the flow of the game would determine the winner. IG played the early game very well with the lane swaps and counterganks. They were also able to group relatively quickly at 11 minutes and start taking advantage of their teamcomp.

The main factor that let them do this is due to Kassadin's unexpected first blood at midlane, which put Fnatic incredibly behind. I recently heard it was partially due to Yasuo getting lucky with 2 crits, allowing him to get a kill that no one expected him to.

Ultimately IG's teamcomp was very good at teamfighting- the wombo combo style, but not especially strong at sieging. There came points where IG was uncertain what to do, and wandered around in confusion- Fnatic took advanage of this and picked them off. Fnatic also showed their steel mental fortitude and ability to make plays when things looked grim.

As far as how accurate my analysis was, well, parts of it were right, other parts were way off. Both teams did some things that I wasn't expecting. But it really came down to IG taking map control early and preventing Fnatic's strengths from taking over the game with map control, roaming, and splitpushing.

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Strategic Analysis: League of Legends IEM- IG v. Fnatic

League of Legends is a very popular online video game that has deep strategic roots and an insane learning curve. I've been interested in the strategic underpinnings of it for a while, and finally feel somewhat comfortable enough to try and analyze the strategy behind it.

I decided to start by analyzing the team compositions of a recent match. You can find the match here.

I started by watching the Picks and Bans, and then proceeded to analyze each team composition's strengths, weaknesses, and goals. Then I tried to imagine how it might play out and how they might clash. I should note that everything I wrote here was from before I watched the actual match.

IG's team:

Top: Shyvanna
Jungle: Wukong
Mid: Yasuo
ADC: Vayne
Support: Thresh

Teamfights- IG's team composition is essentially a wombo-combo team. There are 4 people who can engage a teamfight that would be followed up with stacked CC. If Yasuo or Wukong manage to knock up 5 champions at once, Fnatic is almost guaranteed to lose a few members before they can even move again. This is definitely a strong suit for them, so 5v5 engages around Dragon, Baron, and Turrets favor them.

Skirmish/Catch ability- IG's team can use their ults to catch out champions in the jungle. However, using their ultimates will make them weaker in teamfights since it will take away a stacked CC. But Thresh has incredible catch potential.

Sieging- IG's team is not really a siege composition. They only have 1 real ranged champion who can pick at the turret. They are much more dependent on engaging once the enemy is hidden behind turret.

Turret Defence- IG sort of lacks safe waveclear, so they will have trouble keeping the enemy from picking at their tower every wave. However they have a chance to engage in those scenarios.

Pushing- IG has decent non-safe waveclear with Shyvanna and Wukong, and potentially Yasuo and Vayne if they get a static shiv. Its unlikely that they will try to engage in a splitpush though, given their teamfight strength, and weaker escapes.

In summary: 
IG is a very powerful teamfight composition. They will want to group up as 5 men and try to force engages at dragon and baron once they have their ultimates. They are not so strong at sieging, so their objective control comes after winning a teamfight or getting a kill. However, their strength lies in their coordination, if they get skirmished and waste their ults on 1 or 2 members, they are in trouble.

Fnatic's Team:

Top: Lulu
Jungle: Nocturne
Mid: Kassadin
ADC: Lucian
Support: Annie

Teamfight- Fnatic's teamfight consists of engages by Annie or Nocturne and a follow up by a Lulu ultimate. The team isn't very tanky and lacks hard CC though. They aren't so much a wombo combo team as they are a motley set of champions who all do different things.

Skirmish/Catch potential- The Kassadin and Nocturne make a very powerful gank and kill squad given their mobility and CC. The two of them have the potential to really catch an enemy by surprise, and delete them from the battlefield very quickly. Additionally, Annie adds for some solid back up CC.

Sieging- Fnatic's team is a good siege composition. Lulu and Lucian can poke down towers hard while keeping enemies at bay through powerful harass. The annie stun is a potential disengage, and the mobility of the rest of the team makes them capable of escaping if needed.

Siege Defence- A Lucian Q and a Lulu Q can essentially destroy a wave from a safe distance. Basically this teamcomp is very strong against sieges. The enemy team will have to choose to either fight under tower or splitpush against them.

Pushing- Fnatic's splitpushing is quite strong. Given the strength of the escapes from Kassadin and Lucian, they potentially have the ability to splitpush hard.

In Summary:
Fnatic is a very strong pick composition, as well as siege and siege defence composition. They will want Kassadin and Nocturne to make plays and control the game through catching people out. To do this, they will need to gain control of the map through wards- both pink and green. They might also need to get Kassadin ahead, and probably take midlane. This team thrives in a scenario where the enemy team is uncertain or confused. It punishes mistakes quickly and powerfully.

It's also has members who make great splitpushers given their ability to escape.

The Clash

This is all about how the team compositions will clash. Specifically, we will talk about what each team will try to make happen. IG will want to group and fight as 5- they are too strong not to. Fnatic does have an advantage on most lane match-ups:

• Lulu can harass Shyvanna very hard 
• Lucian and Annie can abuse Vayne's weak early game 
• I'm not fully familiar with the Yasuo v. Kassadin match-up but Kassadin is notoriously weak early game.
• Nocturne and Wukong are probably equal duelists early on, with Wukong having a bit less sustain. However in a fight, it comes down to who outplays the other- rather even

Fnatic will want to get Kassadin a few kills, and gain control of the map through warding. They can do this by taking advantage of their potential early game harass advantage- hopefully they will be able to harass their lane opponents back to base in order to take map pressure with towers and dragons. Fnatic's midgame with a roaming Kassadin and Nocturne is extremely strong, and they want to take as much of an advantage during the time that IG is not grouped as possible.

Additionally, against a 5 man group, Fnatic will be able to splitpush in order to dampen the ability for IG to take advantages. Fnatic should try to pressure multiple lanes at once, and basically beat IG at rotating between lanes given their stronger splitpush and sieging.

IG will want to avoid allowing Fnatic to get far ahead early game, and by mid game will want to group as five and contest Dragon- trying to force Fnatic in a 5v5 teamfight. They want to find a perfect engage, and should probably build tanky if they want to engage under turret. Unfortunately they don't have much in terms of siege potential -given their lack of poke and waveclear- so unless they choose to dive the turret, they won't be able to take turrets without a teamfight in advance.

In general their damage is pretty spread out- Shyvanna and Wukong deal a surprising amount of damage for being so tanky, and Yasuo and Vayne have incredibly high damage outputs. Its not a huge deal if they lose one champion against Fnatic, since they should still be able to find some in the rest of the team. That said, they are pretty dependant on getting their CC combo down- so their ults are important. They will want to use their ults at a precise time while Fnatic is grouped.

Fights in the jungle are good for them, and fights at Baron and Dragon are also good for them. If they build tanky enough, they could also potentially fight under tower.

Conclusion/Outcome

After typing this up, I proceeded to watch the game and see how my analysis actually played out. Here's the follow-up article, and descriptions of how the game played out.

I wrote up a short follow-up article about how the game played out compared to how I expected it to. You can find the article here

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