League of Legends news » Counter Logic my old friend

When we asked Stixxay on a scale from one to counter logic, just how counter logic their victory over ROX Tigers was, he burst out laughing.

“Ten out of ten!”

He’d just emerged from the Chinese media pack -- think 20 or so cameramen and reporters crammed into a tiny room -- that usually awaits him at the end of Counter Logic Gaming’s victories. A flow on effect from his incredible performance at the Mid-Season Invitational that now followed him all the way to Worlds and North America. It turns out ‘Big Stixxay’ is also big in China. “I never know where I’m supposed to look,” Stixxay says with a laugh. “So I just end up looking around or keeping my eyes on the translator.”

It was more than just the media that was reminiscent of MSI. Having been beaten by Albus NoX Luna, one of the International Wildcard teams, CLG would then go onto beat the No. 1 seed from Korea and tournament favorites ROX.

“The same thing happened to us at MSI,” says Stixxay. “We lost to a wildcard team and then the next day we turned around and beat the favorites of the tournament. So, I guess it’s pretty typical of us now.”

So how does something like this happen? Should fans of CLG be more afraid of wildcard teams that No. 1 seeds from Korea and Europe?

“Going into [Albus NoX Luna] we talked about it and said that we need to make sure we don’t disrespect these guys,” says Stixxay. “We actually think that they’re really good and they can easily take a game off us. Going into the game, even though we had that mindset going in, it didn’t really appear in our play which was kind of frustrating.”

Thankfully for CLG, they were able to channel this frustration into something magical in their following game against ROX. As to what advice Stixxay would give future challengers to ROX it was simple: “Be prepared and confident in your own ability.”

A big part of their win came from Huhi’s performance on Aurelion Sol. Of course, there is always the argument that Aphromoo’s stellar playmaking on Alistar was MVP worthy, but it’s hard to ignore the star dragon coming down bot lane for a level 1 gank and proceeding to go 11-1-6. Stixxay had mixed emotions about the Riot scriptwriters who enabled Aurelion Sol just in time for their match against ROX.

“I think it’s pretty funny that Aurelion Sol just got enabled back today,” says Stixxay. “So, we played it instantly. Though it’s pretty lame that [Aurelion Sol] keeps getting disabled and the bug that was happening was really hard to find. I guess I can’t really blame Riot, but there is a lot of bugs and spaghetti code.”

Sorry Stixxay. We asked if we could somehow make it up to him and try to find a bug in another champion to get it disabled for the rest of the tournament. He had a good laugh about it. “If I could have a bug happen to any other champion in the game I would want it to happen to Tahm Kench so he is disabled permanently. I really don’t like that champion.”

Going forward it seems like Aurelion Sol will be permabanned against CLG, and rightly so. Though Stixxay thinks this in itself is going to be a huge advantage for them.

“I think it’s really impressive if a player can pull a pocket pick ban,” says Stixxay. “During MSI people would ban Caitlyn against me all the time, and my coach was always really happy about it, because the fact that someone is so good on a champion that they have to ban it and they can’t play against it, is super good thing. It gives you a really big advantage in the pick and ban.”

As to what’s the best response is to a target ban, Stixxay says, “always make sure to laugh and make sure that the camera sees it.”

CLG go into Week 2 of the Group Stage of Worlds 2016 on equal wins with ROX Tigers and Albus NoX Luna, while G2 Esports of Europe flails behind them still hunting for their first win. It would be impossible to stipulate how this group is going to shape up -- but using the theory of counter logic it’s always better to expect the unexpected. As to Stixxay’s expectations for the rest of the tournament, he just laughed.

“It’s probably going to end up a TSM vs. CLG final.”