LCS Sparknotes Week 2 Day 1

This series is a quick summary of the matches that occurred over the weekend with brief notes on how one team lost and which players were the strengths and weaknesses of their team

Team SoloMid vs Echo Fox:

Courtesy of Riot Games

Echo Fox started off with a great early game. Taking a pre 6 minute dragon and getting a double kill top after a botched dive made it appear the game might be over right then and there. Unfortunately TSM came out to play. Bjergsen and Zven turned it up to 11 and never stopped pressuring FOX for the remainder of the game. Echo Fox fought very well as a team, but a combination of an almost useless Jayce pick and a questionable realm warp bug allowed TSM to close it out. That does not ignore the fact TSM had several quality engages in tight corridors against FOX which were pivotal to their victory.

Studs:

• Bjergsen: In his best performance thus far this split the many time MVP of the LCS made his appearance. Lissandra was a constant terror on the map. When TSM bottom lane lost a 2v2 Bjerg roamed down to help turn things around in a 2 for 1 trade. He seemed to always be close by to fix any mistake his teammates made, consistently ulted multiple FOX players and was the best player in this game.
• Zven: Zven clearly did not want to be left out of the discussion for best Ezreal in North American because he put up a great performance. Behind Tahm Kench he was given the space to lay down huge amounts of damage and only became more powerful the longer the game went on.
• Solo: Apparently Solo wanted to silence those believing he was the worst player on his team. Getting his hands on one of the best picks in the meta Solo was able to stifle Akaadian and BrokenBlade’s gank in the early game and remain a big factor in why TSM was trading in mid game teamfights rather than outright winning.

Duds:

• BrokenBlade/Akaadian: I am lumping these two together because their failures are impossibly coupled. I would like to point I that I do believe with his lack of communication and over-aggression BrokenBlade is more deserving of the blame than Akkadian. That said both players lost multiple 2v1’s and even in 5v5 engages either dove too deep or failed to make the impact their draft was looking for.
• Apollo: The blame here comes more from the decision to draft Jayce than Apollo’s performance. That being said apart from winning lane against Tahm Kench/Ezreal (not exactly a winning lane) Jayce did not poke enough to warrant the pick and was outmatched by the consistent DPS of Ezreal in the late game.

Cloud9 vs Golden Guardians:

Courtesy of Riot Games

Golden Guardians were looking to bounce back this week, but unfortunately for them their first opponent was Cloud9 who are looking extremely scary. Despite GGS killing Svenskeren following a ill thought out invade on the bottom side jungle C9 didn’t really leave any room for GGS to come back. Licorice winning the top lane allowed C9 to take the Rift Herald and open up the mid lane Nisqy was already winning. Soon after Zeyzal and Svenskeren kept the baron side of the map dark with Zoe poking and Braum denying vision while C9 3 maned the baron. The guardians had moments of brilliance, but failed to make anything significant happen.

Studs:

• Licorice: With the help of Svenskeren, Licorice took control of the top lane very quickly. Once again on the Urgot he was able to take the tower and transition top control into securing the rift herald that got the ball rolling for C9. This is to say nothing about his performance in team fights were he offered mass amounts of damage and CC.
• Nisqy: Nisqy played Zoe much better this week than he did last week. He always managed to find the right angle for a trouble bubbles and was a constant nuisance for GGS to deal with.
• Sveskeren: Despite his death while invading the enemy bottom side Jungle Svenskeren was a part of every single kill Cloud9 had in the early game. Not much happened on the map that he was not either starting or a significant part of. No brother sven here.
• Honorable Mention: Froggen: This was the first game this season where fans could see a glimmer of the Froggen many had hoped would show up when his signing with GGS was first announced. Froggen tried his hardest to find plays and assassinated Sneaky during their baron power play to slow down the victory.

Duds:

• Deftly: The analyst desk was very excited when Draven was locked in for Deftly. Unfortunately Draven was never able to cash in on his massive stack streak and this is due in part to a lack of aggression in what should have been a winning laning phase. Deftly did not have notable mistakes, but a lack of pro activity when playing a champion that requires you to get rolling is a mistake in and of itself.

Team Liquid vs 100 Thieves:

Courtesy of Riot Games

100 Thieves were the second team on the day to try and turn around their 0–2 start to the split by facing off against one of the best teams in the league. The saving grace of their 0–3 start to the season is they have perhaps the toughest opening schedule of anyone else in the league. 100T went with an unconventional draft; Yorick top, Sejuani Jungle, and Viktor ADC. The Yorkick was pretty successful in keeping the Sion at bay, but besides that 100T couldn’t make a significant impact. They looked a lot cleaner than the previous week, but a combination of TL bottom lane pushing Viktor in and Xmithie pressuring on Lee Sin in tandem with superior team fighting closed out the now 3–0 Liquid.

Studs:

• Ssumday: While there was not much of a win condition with the Yorick pick Ssumday was able to establish himself against the Sion and prevent it from causing too much damage along the rest of the map while he was in direct conflict with it.
• Xmithie: Going back to his roots on Vulcan Xmithie pulled out a now popular pick on the weekend with Lee Sin. Xmithie was able to gain early control of the bottom side of the map and never let go, allowing his bottom lane to punish the Viktor pick as much as possible. He also demonstrated the clean neutral objective control that has come to characterize the last half of his career.
• Doublelift: Doublelift said he wanted to establish himself as the best NA ADC by dumpstering two time world champion Bang and he made good on his promise. 100T did not elect to go into the straight AD vs AD match-up in the bottom lane, but despite this and the nerfed Rakan pick by CoreJJ Doublelift was still able to quickly kill Bang and gain the upper hand in the bottom lane.

Duds:

• Bang: Bang becomes the second 100T player to look totally uncomfortable on Viktor. Being killed quite early in the laning phase all but doomed Bang. While he was able to remain relevant until the last team fight by outputting damage he still opted into the mage vs AD match up that he proceeded to lose.

Counter Logic Gaming vs FlyQuest:

Courtesy of Riot Games

Counter Logic gaming pick up their first win of the season in a classic game of NA ARAM. FlyQuest’s two wins last week were comebacks after a poor early game and after the first 15 minutes this game was shaping up to be not much different. Most members on FLY actually had a cs lead over their opponents for the entire game and FLY as a team held the gold lead right until the final baron. CLG were looking to fight the 5v5 and FLY wanted to do anything but. The passive play of FLY meant that after a certain point the gold would become irrelevant as they would need to fight over a neutral objective. Both teams can walk away with a lot of notes on what went wrong, but today CLG came away the victor.

Studs:

• Darshan: Darshan stepped up his game after being benched on day 2 last week and he made a statement. He controlled the top lane match-up against Aatrox and had several key engages with Sion ultimate around the baron pit.
• PowerofEvil: After a admittedly poor Orianna game POE showed what many expect from his Orianna. The back and forth mid lane did not net him a CS lead over Syndra, but the amount of damage he was able to put out in skirmishes and team fights was unmatched. POE carried CLG until Ezreal came online and was able to return the favor.

Duds:

• Viper: Aatrox wanted to flank and disrupt the straight forward team composition that CLG draft or split in the solo lane as other players have demonstrated this season. Sadly the combination of losing to Sion and lack of team coordination made both impossible.
• Santorin: Despite good pathing and dragon control (thanks to the winning bottom lane) Santorin wasn’t able to make plays on Lee Sin. After the team chose to sit back and play ARAM the pick fell off later in the game to the point where if you aren’t trying to insec kick you are virtually just a smite/ward bot.

Optic Gaming vs Clutch Gaming:

Courtesy of Riot Games

Clutch Gaming’s hopes of going 3–0 ended almost from champion select. Jayce, Elise, and Akali have a lot of early pressure, but after Sion got a triple kill and CG fell behind it was a done deal. Optic showed superior team play and a more stable top lane once Dhokla was subbed back in. With Arrow supposedly returning to the starting line-up soon this team could get even more fierce.

Studs:

• Dhokla: Sion is a powerful pick, especially when given 3 kills. Huni had the upper hand and maintained a CS lead bullying Sion, but the champion scaled so well into the late game that matter little. Dhokla had excellent ultimate flanks and worked very well with the rest of his team.
• Dardoch: Dardoch put up a great Lee Sin performance at one point being 4–0–1. He has cleaned up his play vastly from the first week and seems to be working much better with his mid laner.
• Crown: Breaking out the surprise Rumble pick to “counter” the Akali threw a huge wrench into CG’s game plan. He continued to roam well and used his ultimate superbly.
• Piglet: Piglet might be the best Ezreal in NA. Once again trying to save his team almost single handed Piglet was unleashing massive amounts of poke damage all game long. The pick didn’t accomplish much in lane (surprise surprise) but fights like Optic’s first baron take would have been much worse if not for his excellent play.

Duds:

• Lira: Lira attempted to put out pressure in the early game on the already questionable Elise pick, but mechanical mistakes and over extensions brought him to his death multiple times. After the Sion triple kill there was little coming back against the superior scaling of Optic.
• Huni: The only good thing you could point to in Huni’s performance this match would be his CS lead over Sion. After that he suicide’d multiple fights, was caught out in the side lane several times and was overall not useful in Clutch’s very limited win condition.

Power Rankings Week 2 Day 1:

1. Team Liquid
2. Cloud9
3. FlyQuest
4. Team SoloMid
5. Optic Gaming
6. Clutch Gaming
7. Counter Logic Gaming
8. Echo Fox
9. 100 Thieves
10. Golden Guardians