Team SoloMid vs 100 Thieves
100 Thieves are entering the sixth week of LCS 2020 Summer with a two-game winning streak, which is impressive on its own, but the fact that they managed to take down FlyQuest and Cloud9 makes their streak far more remarkable. Some may argue that 100T’s win over Cloud9 was a complete fluke, but honestly, 100T were just a better team that night.
I’m not ready to believe 100T are a playoffs-material team based on one weeks’ performance, but if they can continue playing at this pace, they just might impress many people by the end of the split. While we talk about 100T, I have to go back and apologize for underappreciating 100T’s new jungler Juan “Contractz” Arturo Garcia, who has impressed me with his recent performances.
Throughout four games played, he has averaged 7.8 KDA, 76% KPAR and a solid 21.5% damage share for his squad. What’s more, he was praised for his leadership skills and while we don’t have an insight of how the team operates, 100T indeed looked far more organized last week, so there’s that.
Team SoloMid, on the other side, I am not prepared to praise too much. Last week they lost to Cloud9 and Immortals, which still sits them at third place with 6-4 record, but I was not impressed with what they have shown. They made way too many mistakes in their bout with Immortals and got severely punished for it. Broken Blade had a disastrous game and I would not praise Doublelift for his performances either. Yes, he finished the match with a positive KDA (4/1/1), but his approach to the game and decision making was very iffy.
For this week matches, TSM will replace their support Biofrost for Treatz, who could impress, but there are still too many other issues TSM have to fix before I start believing in them.
100T are in a much better form and if the Week 5 performances are to go by they should win here. Betting against TSM, however, is always tricky due to the sheer individual quality they possess, but since the problem in this team is not the lack of quality but rather subpar decision making, betting on 100T to keep it close is what we are going for.
Prediction: 100 Thieves +4.5 – 1.892
Team Liquid vs Evil Geniuses
Team Liquid are 8-2 this split, which sits them only one win behind Cloud9 and two ahead of Team SoloMid at third, so they’re undoubtedly the second-strongest team in the league right? Well not quite.
Liquid’s record might look impressive, but the way they got to that record is just… To put it simply they don’t deserve to sit as high as they do. Looking back, Liquid barely defeated Immortals and got extremely lucky to edge out FlyQuest in Week 4. Last week, Liquid picked another two wins against Counter Logic Gaming and Golden Guardians, but even there they did not look as sharp as you would expect.
It seems like Liquid’s recent success really comes down more to luck than skill and while it may not seem like it, Liquid are on very shaky ground and are bound to fall sooner or later, especially when faced against a team that can take advantage of their mistakes.
Talking about being on shaky ground, Evil Geniuses are likely one of the biggest disappointments in the league. After securing 3-1 record through the first two weeks, they went on a 2-4 run across Weeks 3-5 which now sits them at tied-fourth place with a 5-5 record. Consistency is not a word I would use to describe Evil Geniuses, but I still believe this team is capable of much more than what they lead us to believe.
Ahead of this bout, EG replaced Jiizuke with Goldenglue, which might not seem like an upgrade, but it just might be the change they need to get back on the track.
Jiizuke has been performing very poorly lately, so any player should, in theory, be an upgrade. Goldenglue has before proven he can be a solid player, and since this just might be his last chance to save his career, we can expect a bit more from him heading into this bout. Last time out, Evil Geneses crushed Liquid and while it will be difficult to replicate that result, I still like EG better than the overrated Liquid.
Prediction: Evil Geniuses +5.5 kills – 1.79
