Team Liquid vs Evil Geniuses
Team Liquid look to have improved from their LCS Spring campaign and it’s exciting to see Tactical play at such a high level. With 3-0 record, Liquid are now tied with C9 as the league frontrunners, however, that record does not show the real picture. So far, Liquid defeated TSM, who were visibly struggling in the opening match of the split, as well as Golden Guardians and 100 Thieves, which are not exactly top-tier teams and I’m sure Liquid would not be sitting as high on the leaderboard had they played tougher opponents.
Evil Genuises, on the other side, crushed both CLG and 100 Thieves in the opening week but got stomped in their game against Cloud9. Although EG played well, especially Bang and Zeyzal, Jiizuke, unfortunately, failed to show up, which is in most part due to their draft that put him on Kassadin. Furthermore, Blaber, Licorice and Nisqy all played exceptionally well, so we would not criticise EG too much for that loss.
Comparing Team Liquid and Evil Genuises, the latter are still a much better team in our book despite their humiliating loss to C9. Although Tactical and CoreJJ are very solid, Bang and Zyezal are still putting up much better performances. They did not manage to carry EG to victory, but the fact that they went toe-to-toe with Vulcan and Zven speaks a lot about their quality. Kumo I also rank higher than Impact, who did not impress so far and even his Ornn performance was so so.
As for the overall performances of these two teams, EG have shown far better objective control. Furthermore, EG have two carries (Jiizuke and Bang) as compared to Team Liquid, who put all their resources into ADC, which is still a habit from when they had Doublelift on the roster.
Prediction: Evil Genuises to win – 1.952
FlyQuest vs Dignitas
The decision to swap out WildTurtle for MasH has proven beneficial for FlyQuest, who managed to stomp TSM thanks to no other than MasH who ended the game with 11/1/11 record. Having said that, PowerOfEvil, Santonin and Solo all had great performances and if this team can continue playing at this pace, they might surprise many this split.
As for Dignitas, this team is performing very poorly. Last night we got to see (again), why this squad will not succeed and while Johnsun had a solid performance (7/2/0), the rest of the team showed nothing. The fact that Johnsun had seven out of eight kills shows how much Dignitas are trying to turn their ADC into the go-to carry, but as long as we don’t see more from V1per and Akaadian, DIG will struggle. We also got to see Froggen on LeBlanc, which makes me believe DIG are looking to follow the footsteps of other teams and turn their mid and ADC into carry players, but as evident, Froggen does not perform well on carry mid laners and is instead much more reliable on utility champions.
Across the board, FlyQuest are a more solid team with a reliable mid laner and now an improved ADC. What worries me about DIG is also their poor objective control, which is the worst in the league even below that of Immortals. DIG have a lot of problems they need to fix, and until we see some improvement, any bet against them is a good bet.
Prediction: FlyQurest -7.5 kills – 1.892
Golden Guardians vs Cloud9
There is not a lot to be said here. Golden Guardians showed just how shaky they can be in their loss against CLG last Friday and seeing how they failed to establish a strong drake control worries me, especially against C9 who are a very solid objective-oriented team.
What’s more, GG are just not aggressive enough to stop Cloud9 in the early game. Similarly to last split, C9 tend to grab an early lead and snowball it into a victory. As long as you let them get ahead, C9 will stomp anyone and I don’t see how this game will end in any other way.
Prediction: Under 32 minutes – 1.684
100T vs Immortals
Neither team managed to win a single match this split and to be fair, they did not deserve to. Having said that, 100 Thieves faced much tougher opponents in EG, Cloud9 and Team Liquid, who are arguably three of the strongest teams in the league. Immortals, on the other side faced FlyQuest, CLG and TSM.
Comparing these two teams, both have solid top laners, albeit Ssumday is far more consistent than sOAZ. Furthermore, Cody Sun is miles better compared to Altec, which effectively gives 100T an undeniable advantage in both top and bottom lane. As for jungle, Meteos has had a few iffy performances, but he has faced Broxah, Svenskeren and Blaber who are three of the best junglers in NA, so we can expect a better performance from him. Mid lane seems 50/50 and while Eika produced better numbers than Ryoma, the same arguments as above apply here as well.
100T did not look too sharp so far, but as mentioned they faced only the strongest teams in the league. Overall 100T have far better individual players on the roster and their approach to the game looks to be far cleaner compare to Immortals, who (still) have no proper shot-caller.
This will be a perfect opportunity for 100T to bounce back and we can be sure they will grab this chance with both hands. A loss here would more or less cement 100T as one of the worst teams in the league, however, that tag just doesn’t fit on a team with Cody Sun and Ssumday on the roster.
Prediction: 100 Thieves – 5.5 kills – 1.840 – Best Bet
