Week three of League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) continued this Sunday, February 9, with four more fixtures, featuring only the best North American League of Legends teams who will continue their climb towards Spring Split title.
Day one of 2020 LEC Spring Split was an exciting one to watch, for an average LoL fan and not so much for Team Liquid supporters, who saw their team get ripped apart by 100 Thieves (13-5) who produced one of the biggest upset wins of the season. Unfortunately, that also meant our prediction did not win. On a more positive note, Evil Genuises and Counter Logic Gaming produced a bloody match, Team SoloMid defeated Dignitas, while Cloud9 stomped FlyQuest into the dirt, thus softening the blow of other missed predictions.
Now let’s take a look at what awaits us on day two of 2020 LCS Spring Split Week 3.
Immortals vs 100 Thieves
Sunday, February 9 – 12:00 PST
Following a commanding win over Team Liquid, 100 Thieves will be chasing their second win of the week, which will cement them as one of the top teams in the league. Due to their impressive performance on Saturday, 100 Thieves are entering this bout as heavy favorites, which is fair, considering Immortals have yet to show anything noteworthy besides their messy win over Team SoloMid in week one and hard-fought win against Golden Guardians last Sunday.
Immortals are not really a team we expect to achieve anything this season as they lack the quality to compete against the top dogs. On the paper, this team should be better as they lead us to believe, but it’s hard to be overly optimistic when neither of their players steps up and carries the team. Johnny “Altec” Ru had a solid performance against Golden Guardians which is a promising sign, but he will have his work cut out for him this Sunday, when he faces off against Sun “Cody” “Cody Sun” Li-Yu who is easily one of the top-four ADCs in the league.
Another thing worth noting here is that immortals won that match (against GGS) solely because Yuri “Keith” Jew was running it down, basically gifting Immortals a win, so we can’t rank that win too highly.
100 Thieves might not be one of the best LCS teams in the league, simply because they need to prove themselves some more, but they are playing well. They decimated Counter Logic gaming, did not get completely stomped by Cloud9 and produced a very clean upset win against Team Liquid. Based on what these two teams have shown, we believe 100 Thieves are more than capable of defeating Immortals with a large margin.
Prediction: 100 Thieves -4.5 kills – 2.04 Pinnacle
Golden Guardians vs Team SoloMid
Sunday, February 9 – 13:00 PST
Looking at this matchup it’s hard to be overly optimistic with Golden Guardians who are arguably one of the worst teams in the league, right next to Counter Logic Gaming, Evil Geniuses and Immortals. On the other side, we have Team SoloMid who looked very solid in their win over Dignitas, which gave us a glimpse into how strong this team is, if they try.
As we see it, this match will be decided in either mid or bottom lane, where TSM hold a significant advantage over Golden Guardians. Goldenglue will in no way be comparable to Bjergsen, while Kobbe-Biofrost duo should decimate Keith-Huhi in the bottom lane, especially with Keith on the roster. Last season Keith was an ADC main and was bad at it, this season he swapped to support and is still terrible. All in all, we have no hope Golden Guardians can deliver or even leave a dent in TSM.
Prediction: Team SoloMid – 6.5 kills – 1.91 Pinnacle
Dignitas vs Cloud9
Sunday, February 9 – 14:00 PST
The match of the week will see Dignitas take on Cloud9 in what will be the final test for Dignitas, who can establish themselves as a legitimate playoff contender, if they somehow manage to derail Cloud9 on their way to a perfect 6-0 record.
As we have learned so far, Dignitas are a hit-or-miss team. Their only win condition is if they can get ahead early and snowball off that lead, while, as soon as they meet some resistance in the early stages of the game, Dignitas can and more times than not will fall apart. That is not to say they are a bad team – far from it. We are firm believers they will make the playoffs, however, defeating Cloud9 will be incredibly difficult.
Cloud9 are the frontrunners of the league and deservingly so. They play at a high tempo and in a way, their playstyle reminds us of G2 over in the LEC in Europe. While Cloud9 are nowhere near the level of G2, they play like them in a way that Cloud9 makes little to no mistakes and tend to dominate each match from the first minute.
We don’t expect any surprises here. A close match is possible but not plausible and while we would love to see Dignitas slow down C9 a bit, we don’t believe they have the needed tools to do so, at least not now, while C9 are firing on all cylinders and have shown nothing that would lead us to believe they will stop.
Prediction: Cloud9 -6.5 kills – 1.877 Pinnacle
FlyQuest vs Evil Geniuses
Sunday, February 9 – 15:00 PST
We are not all to convinced with FlyQuest this season. They have a solid record, but it seems like they are defeating only teams that either underperform or are just plain bad. FlyQuest defeated Immortals and CLG in week one, to which they added a crushing defeat against Team Liquid and a win against Dignitas.
They are still a solid team and should see a fair amount of success this season, but in the long run, they are nothing more than a top-four team. Maybe even top five, should TSM find their stride by the end of the split. The biggest problem we have is that FlyQuest are wining because this meta suits them, more specifically it suits their star mid laner Tristan “PowerOfEvil” Schrage. But what happens when meta shifts?
As we have already mentioned on Saturday, Evil Geniuses’’ draft approach is just disastrous. What exactly are they doing is anyone’s guess, but it’s obviously not working and the fact that they lost to CLG on Saturday is just another indicator that proves EG are just a bad team.
FlyQuest are rightfully the favorites here, but we still feel like bookmakers severely underestimate FlyQuest. Omran “V1per” Shoura has had some iffy showings, but overall, he is a solid player which is why we are not too concerned with FlyQuest’s top lane. Furthermore, EG’s mid laner Daniele “Jiizuke” di Mauro is a hit-or-miss mid laner, which can either mean he will win the lane against PowerOfEvil or get completely stomped, and looking at the recent performances, the latter is far more likely to happen.
We don’t believe EG have a legitimate chance of winning here, and for that reason, we must side with FlyQuest, who should stomp EG if they can find their stride in the early game.
Prediction: FlyQuest to win – 1.704 Pinnacle
Prediction: FlyQuest – 3.5 kills – 2.05 Pinnacle
Best Bet: FlyQuest to win – 1.704 Pinnacle
