CBLOL: paiN Gaming

Spring Season Record: 11-7

The Brazillian representative for MSI is paiN Gaming. We have seen this team perform before on the international stage with appearances in the World Championship in 2015, IEM San Jose, and two versions of IEM Sao Paulo. Brazil is gaining more and more respect in the professional scene with their off meta picks and aggressive play style. What really holds this region back is not technical talent but is macro (or playing the whole map) decisions. PNG made a somewhat miracle run after finishing 5th in the regular season standings to playing all the way through the CBLOL playoffs. Now moving to the international stage it will be a real test for this Cinderella story to see if they have what it takes to make a legitimate run against some of the heaviest hitting teams in the World. 

Lane Breakdown

In this section I am going to go lane by lane (or position by position) and grade out each player and set some expectations for what we should see from them in the group stage! Obviously playing on stage in an actual tournament can give us some pretty special moments but I will outline what should be the most likely outcome.

Top Lane (Robo): This is a kill heavy team. They like to fight early and often. In fact, in the entire CBLOL paiN Gaming has the top four spots locked up for most kills. This should make you pretty excited to pick up players from PNG. Robo had a 2.8 KDA but what do deaths matter when he had 41 kills and 80 assists in 14 games? He has an absolute champion ocean with 13 unique champions played in the the Spring Split alone ranging from your front line tanks like Sion, to the flashier carry top laners in Irelia. On champions he does well on, he does well (A 16 KDA on Irelia) and champions he plays poorly, he plays really poorly (a measly 1 KDA on Renekton). This pick will be good if you are looking for wrinkles in your lobbies but not a player I would invest very much on until we see him more tested. 

Jungle (CarioK): Quietly CarioK is a pretty pivotal player on PNG. In the regular split he had a KDA of5.2 but in the playoffs he had only a 3.5 over the 14 games played. He tends to opt for the more team driven picks that shine in the smaller skirmishes as well as team fights. Picks like Hecarim, Lillia, and Udyr all make the top of the list. He will sprinkle in the Graves, Olaf, and Kindred picks and play more for himself but he does tend to have less of an impact that way. I would love to see PNG lean into their carries in tinowns and more importantly brTT and let CarioK focus on farming and winning the small early game skirmishes. Don’t be a hero, just help the heroes get the job done.

Mid Lane (tinowns): This is the most refined player on this team and probably the best idea for a value pickup. He has had a consistent and safe level of play throughout the 2021 season. He had less than 20 deaths in the regular split and 22 in the playoffs with a KDA over 10 in the playoffs. He is still one of the leading kill leaders in the CBLOL (131 kills in all of Spring) and brings a level of control to a very volatile team. I would not be surprised to see possible offers for tinowns in the off season. He will bring a wide range of champions to the table and that could be the angle for PNG to make a deeper run.

Bot/AD Carry (brTT): This is the exciting player to watch for PNG. In their semifinal match in the playoffs he picked Draven to win game 5 which is a very off meta pick and so exciting to watch. He dropped 86 kills in the regular season and 55 in the playoffs and had a staggering kill share rate 28% with only a 63% team kill participation. He is an animal in lane and one of the most aggressive ADCs I have seen in a while. Look for brTT to work with Luci to create a lot of pressure in the bottom lane which will give tinowns more of an opportunity to get ahead. 

Support (Luci): Supporting the most aggressive ADC has its perks. For Luci, the payoff is in the massive number of assists he gets. He had second most assists in the regular season (193) and first in playoffs (88). Luci loves playing the initiating supports who can make the flashy plays. Picks like the Alistar and Thresh top his list of champions but there should be some hesitation with auto-adding him into your lineups. He is extremely death prone and could go one game with a 9 KDA to the next being a .5 KDA. He is very feast or famine and so much of it is because of his playstyle and what PNG ask him to do. 

Cann’s Final Thoughts

PNG will be the team we look at when the group stages are done and we say, “Wow they were exciting and they were way better than their record shows!”. That being said, I don’t have a lot of faith in their hot/cold playstyle, especially as they play teams like MAD Lions, PSG, and Istanbul Wildcats in their group stage. I see them maybe stealing a game here or there but nothing that is going of any real note getting out of groups.    

Cann’s Record Prediction: 2-4
Cann’s Final Placement Prediction: Round Robin Play