By Helmight
With the
conclusion of the NA LCS’s first week of playoffs, one thing is clear – no one
in this league is giving anything less than 100%. Keep reading for the recap of
TSM’s series against Dignitas and Curse’s matchup against CLG.
Team SoloMid versus Dignitas
This series
had some of the best games this split, hands-down. Team SoloMid and Dignitas
went down to the wire in every match, three of which went on for 50+ minutes. Game
1 went solidly Dignitas’s way. ZionSpartan’s Nasus proved to be a perfect
counter for Dyrus’s full tank Maokai and he literally splitpushed his way to
victory. Dyrus could do nothing to stop the lategame Nasus from taking towers
and inhibitors under his nose – he just didn’t have enough damage or enough
crowd control to keep the jackal away from structures. All the rest of Curse
had to do was keep from losing while Zion pushed, a strategy that was too easy
to pull off thanks to the waveclear of Shiphtur’s Ziggs and Imaqtpie’s Corki. After
getting a huge amount of Q stacks farmed up, ZionSpartan was able to Teleport
into TSM’s base and solo the last Nexus tower before moving for the Nexus.
Amazing did his best to kill Zion, but Dignitas’s toplaner survived with 53
health and took down TSM for their first victory.
Game 2
ended with a backdoor play as well, but this time it came from Team SoloMid.
WildTurtle rushed into Dignitas’s base and pounded away at the exposed Nexus
while Dig frantically recalled. He may very well have taken the game, but for
some reason Turtle decided to ult the Nexus instead of just attacking it. He
might have been trying to get another Sheen proc off his ult, but it took too
long. Dignitas collapsed and killed him, sparing their Nexus with barely 200
health. Dyrus was the next contestant and rushed into Dignitas’s base right
after his marksman fell – however, Maokai isn’t exactly known for his
structure-taking abilities and was chain-CCed by Dig until he died right next
to the Nexus. Finally, it was TSM’s jungler Amazing who took the victory by waiting
until Dignitas left the base and scurried inside to knock the last few hundred
hitpoints off the Nexus.
The third
game was yet another 50-minute, closely-fought match. The burden of carrying
was placed solely on the shoulders of WildTurtle for TSM in their Protect the
Tristana composition and he pulled it off despite the assassination threat of
Shiphtur’s Ahri. In the end, a simple rotation mistake by Dignitas marked their
downfall – Tristana’s damage was high enough to melt Imaqtpie in three shots,
and then the reset let him take out Crumbzz as well. With an inhibitor already
down and two members dead, Dignitas could do nothing to stop Team SoloMid from
taking an advantage in the series.
And
finally, after having fought so hard for so long, Dignitas cracked. Game 4 was
a stomp for Team SoloMid, with three members going deathless and Wildturtle
picking up seven kills throughout the course of the game. Dignitas had a big
chance to win after ZionSpartan’s Olaf smashed Dyrus’s Lulu in lane, but even
he couldn’t deal with the rest of TSM snowballing out of control. They finally
fell after just 33 minutes of play to a composed and controlled TSM squad,
giving Team SoloMid a pass into the next round of playoffs.
Curse versus Counter Logic Gaming
Counter
Logic Gaming was the heavy favorite going into this series, commanding nearly
70% of the popular vote and coming off a practice trip in Korea. Everyone
expected to see a prepared and well-rested CLG coming out hard with new tactics
and picks. What happened instead was a hard loss to Curse in three games and a
disappointing end to their season. Game 1 however was a well-fought battle reminiscent
of the TSM/DIG games. CLG countered Curse’s picks nicely, using the threat of
Doublelift’s Twitch to reign in Quas’s splitpushing Nidalee. Without a
splitpush threat, Curse was hard-pressed to find objective and pressure CLG – however,
thanks to brilliant play by Voyboy and clutch ults from Xpecial’s Zilean, they
stayed in the game. In the end, CLG brought about their own ruin when they
overreached looking for an initiation. Doublelift’s Twitch managed to take down
Voyboy from stealth, but not quickly enough – he went down to Voyboy and
IWillDominate’s ults, and top of that Voyboy was resurrected by a timely
Chronoshift. The remainder of the teamfight was a stomp for Curse, and with
long death timers CLG could do nothing to stop Curse’s eventual win.
With a
tough loss under their belts, CLG needed to come back and win Game 2 if they
wanted to stay in the series. Since Quas had proven to be instrumental in Curse’s
first win, Counter Logic Gaming made the decision to camp his lane and remove his
Nidalee as a threat. Though dexter managed to get first blood off of Quas
during the laning phase, it was the only kill that CLG would get on Curse’s
toplaner throughout the rest of the early game. Meanwhile, Link and Seraph were
facing uphill battles in their respective lanes without any support from their
jungler and naturally suffered for it. When the first teamfight finally hit,
CLG made their second crucial mistake and tried to brute-force an engage
without Aphromoo’s ult. The result was 2 kills for Curse and a solid 3k gold
lead. Though CLG managed to get the kills back, Curse made a cheeky play and
took a 17-minute Baron without contest. After that, it was all downhill for CLG
and they went on to lose it in 23 minutes.
The final
game was similar to Game 2, but even worse for CLG. Curse snowballed early and
snowballed hard, despite not having Nidalee or Syndra available for their solo
lanes. Key to this was CLG’s early dragon attempt. If they had gotten away with
it, they might have forestalled Curse’s power spike – however, no one outsmites
a Nunu and IWillDominate was easily able to steal it away. The following
teamfight resulted in three kills for Curse and a dominating early lead. A few
fights later, Curse was standing triumphant at the Nexus and moving on to the
next round.
For stats and VoDs for each game, check out LoL Esports: TSM vs Dignitas and Curse vs CLG
