FlyQuest vs Team Liquid
Team Liquid had to work hard to defeat Immortals this Saturday and I don’t know how to feel about it. Even though Immortals have improved drastically by fielding their academy roster, seeing Liquid struggle to win to such a degree does not fill me up with confidence.
Meanwhile, FlyQuest crushed Evil Genuises in such a commanding fashion it was painful to watch. Jiizuke pulled out Kog’Maw mid lane, hoping to see the same success as Caps in the LEC, but failed miserably with 0/5/2 score. Bang and Zeyzal had an equally disappointing performance in the bot lane, while Kumo managed only 1/4/5 record against Solo. On the side of FlyQuest, PowerOfEvil showed his excellence on Orianna with the help of Santorin, while Solo, Mash and IgNar all helped their team claim a much-needed victory with their strong performances.
Team Liquid are performing very poorly as of late and it was not only their iffy performance against Immortals that makes me worried, but it’s also their shaky performance against Dignitas last week that just wasn’t at the level we expected to see from this team.
This could easily turn out to be a close match, but after what Liquid have shown yesterday, I don’t feel it’s fair to have FlyQuest priced as favorites.
Prediction: FlyQuest to win – 1.990
Counter Logic Gaming vs Team SoloMid
In one of the biggest rivalries in esports, we will see the surging Counter Logic Gaming take on Team SoloMid in what is billed as a one-sided affair, where TSM should come out victorious without any issues.
But not everything is as straightforward as it seems. Yesterday, we saw TSM take down Golden Guardians with 11-5 and 9k gold lead by the end of the game and while it was an impressive win, it was really only Doublelift and Bjergsen who did all the work. Having two strong players on the roster is a plus, but having ONLY two strong players on the roster is not optimal, to say the least. To be fair, Spica did his part in helping Bjegrsen open up the map, but I’m still waiting to see a bit more from this squad, especially against top teams.
Counter Logic Gaming lost their opening match of Week 4 against Cloud9 in a fairly convincing fashion. As mentioned before, Cloud9 are so far above all other LCS teams that I don’t really feel like it’s fair to criticise CLG too much for that loss. It came to a point that the strength of LCS teams is measure by which team lost to Cloud9 more convincingly and considering TSM have yet to play C9 we can’t take that approach here.
Looking back at Week 3 matches, CLG lost to FlyQuest and defeated 100 Thieves. CLG performed well in both games and even had a solid shot at taking down FlyQuest, while they completely stomped the struggling 100T.
Even though CLG are not nearly as solid for me to consider them as one of the top-four teams in the league, this squad has been improving. Stixxay is playing very solid League of Legends and if Pobelter and Wiggly can continue to look stable, CLG will likely pick up a few wins by the end of the split.
The biggest problem with TSM is that they can be very inconsistent which does not convince me they will have an easy time here. They might outclass CLG in mid-late game, but if CLG can get an early lead, we can expect a long and exciting game with plenty of kills on the board.
Prediction: Over 22.5 kills – 1.847
Evil Geniuses vs Immortals
We have to address the elephant in the room, which is Evil Geniuses’ struggles in their recent matches. Last week they humiliated themselves against TSM (1-16), to which they added a narrow and not convincing win against Dignitas (8-4). This Saturday, however, Evil Geniuses reached a new low by suffering a crushing defeat against FlyQuest, who crushed EG with 22-7 kill score and over 7k gold lead by the end of the game.
Immortals, on the other side, looked vastly improved and came extremely close to defeating Team Liquid. Even that is an understatement since the game ended up being decided by a base race. Even though Immortals lost that game, I was impressed with what they have shown and while they are still a bottom-three team in my book, this match will be an excellent opportunity for them to prove themselves and rise up the standings.
Quality-wise, EG are still far above Immortals, but I’m not convinced by their iffy performances lately. What’s more, EG play very passively (average 8.8 kills per game) which suggests they won’t pick up many kills here. That gives us an excellent opportunity to side with Immortals to keep the kill score within seven kills.
Prediction: Immortals +7.5 kills – 1.934
