Blaber's Legacy Split
Author: Matt Anikiej
Blaber’s career is filled with some of the highest highs of any Jungler in LCS history. After one of the most disappointing finishes in his illustrious history, Blaber has the opportunity to overcome that hurdle and cement his name on the Mount Rushmore of the greatest LCS players.
While the LCS is shallow in some roles like Mid and Bot lane, the league has tended to always have a solid Jungle pool. With some incredible names like Meteos, Xmithie, and Reignover, and four of the last six MVPs having been a Jungler, the role has the highest bar for entry into the LCS. One player, Robert “Blaber” Huang, has managed to shine from his first debut for Cloud9 in Week 5 of the LCS 2018 Summer Split. Since his debut, he has won the LCS split championship two times, won MVP twice, and reached the Semifinals at Worlds in 2019 and Quarterfinals in 2021.
During his dominant reign in NA, Blaber has made a name for himself with his hyper aggressive style that catches most of the other LCS Junglers off guard. One of his earliest exciting plays was in W7D2 of 2018 LCS Summer Split. Blaber hopped over the wall and dashed into CLG’s base as Kindred and baited them into blowing their cooldowns on him with Lamb’s Respite still available. It was at this moment where I knew that Blaber had the potential to be the next great LCS player.
His playstyle has only become more refined and he’s developed into the best Jungler in the LCS. The 2020 Spring Cloud9 roster was one of the most dominant LCS teams of all time. They were the best team NA has ever produced and unfortunately, they never got to play internationally at MSI due to the event being canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The games were usually won by picking champs that would enable Blaber to carry. His Olaf became feared and a must ban against him, he boasted an incredible +546 GD@15 and a +586 XP@15 that was unlike anything we’ve ever seen in the LCS. Blaber was marching his way into cementing his name as one of the greatest NA players of all time.
Blaber looked unstoppable, but with him and his teams tending to collapse in the Summer Split, Blaber’s star status has dimmed with the rise of 100T Closer, TSM Spica, and Santorin is also playing the best League of Legends of his stellar career on TL. The 2022 Spring Split was extremely disappointing for Cloud9. Lots of coaching and communication issues plagued the Cloud9 roster, and the team fizzled out towards the end of the split and got embarrassed in the playoffs, getting knocked out 0:3 by Evil Geniuses. Overall the team was super one dimensional. They went away from enabling Blaber, to winning through Top because of superstar Korean Toplaner Park "Summit" Woo-tae, who ended up winning the 2022 LCS Spring Split MVP award. Once the other teams figured Summit out, Cloud9 fell apart.
The 2022 LCS Summer Split returns all of the incredible Jungle talent from the Spring Split with phenomenal players such as former LEC MVP EG Inspired, former LCS MVPs TL Santorin and TSM Spica, and recent star LCS Champion 100T Closer. All the greatest LCS players, like Doublelift, Sneaky, or Bjergsen, have faced adversity in their careers and were able to bounce back very strongly. However, we’ve also seen time and time again players folding and never reaching close to those heights again. Is Blaber truly able to carry his team to a split championship in the year with the strongest Jungle talent he has competed against? Or is Blaber unable to adapt and overcome the gauntlet of Junglers ready to usurp him?
For the Summer Split, Cloud9 have retuned their roster by sending Ibrahim “Fudge” Allami back to Toplane, swapping Jesper “Zven” Svenningsen into Support, and reuniting the original Mid-Jungle Blaber started his career with by bringing back Nicolaj “Jensen” Jensen to Midlane. Anything less than a Worlds appearance for this team would be a disappointment, but it is obvious all the players on this team have higher ambitions, and the team is highly dependent on Blaber’s performance this split to either beat or neutralize the enemy jungler. The weight of the pressure on Blaber’s shoulders this split is heavier than it’s been in his entire career since taking over the starting role for Cloud9. If Blaber finishes the 2022 LCS Summer Split with a victory in the finals, he will have cemented himself among the greatest LCS players of all time.
Images courtesy of Riot Games