We had another close regular season this split with 2nd to 7th only separated by 2 games. Cloud9 took 2nd place with a 11-7 record, while 4 other teams tied at 10-8 between 3rd and 6th and just on the outside OpTic Gaming at 7th place with a 9-9 record. After tiebreaker Monday, we had 4th place Echo Fox vs 5th place Team SoloMid and then 3rd place 100 Thieves vs 6th place FlyQuest. Echo Fox finished 3rd last split, while Team SoloMid were 5th-6th. Echo Fox have been trending downwards, while Team SoloMid have been trending upwards. Team SoloMid showed their great late game shot calling and team fighting taking the 1st game on the back of a pentakill from Zven. Echo Fox bounced back in Game 2 and Game 3 with Dardoch on Kindred going 5-2-8 and 6-2-7 respectively. Game 4 was taken by Bjersen's Irelia going 11-1-1 and showing us once again that he can carry his team. Game 5 saw Echo Fox take 2 early dragons, but Team SoloMid slowly took control taking the next 3 dragons, which included 2 infernals. They dominated the map, taking down a total of 11 towers to Echo Fox's 1 and securing baron as well. Bjersen pulled out his Leblanc and went 5-0-4 to push Team SoloMid into the semifinals.
The next quarterfinals match up was no where as close as the first one. 100 Thieves showed that they have too much experience against FlyQuest. In Game 1, FlyQuest got off to an early lead through multiple ganks from their jungler Santorin's Nocturne, but a few mid game mistakes allowed 100 Thieves to take back control. Even after FlyQuest were able to secure baron, 100 Thieves were able to continually punish their decisions and took Game 1 quite easily. Game 2 was the exact same draft as Game 1, but this time it wasn't close at all as 100 Thieves learned from their mistakes and controlled the game from start to finish. Game 3 saw FlyQuest put up a fight taking 100 Thieves to the late game. A total of 16 towers were taken between both teams with an additional 3 barons also being taken. 100 Thieves took baron and then elder dragon to finally finish off the series in a clean sweep.
In the new NA LCS playoff format, 1st place gets to choose their opponent in the semifinals and in not so surprising fashion, Team Liquid chose 100 Thieves, who they have great success against. Last split, Team Liquid beat 100 Thieves in the Spring Finals 3-0. Then they followed that up with a 2-0 record against them this split. Both Cloud9 and Team SoloMid responded to Team Liquid's choice as they both commented on how Team Liquid did not choose the lower seeded Team SoloMid. Cloud9 and Team SoloMid are 1-1 this split, but Cloud9 are the hotter team coming into playoffs.
Comments