Golden Guardians vs Counter Logic Gaming
I must say I was quite impressed with the performance of Golden Guardians against Cloud9 and while there are arguments to be made C9 underperformed, the decision making and individual input from Golden Guardians members was very inspiring.
Damonte had another standout performance on Syndra and it’s hard not to be impressed with FBI, who I have praised before. But most of all, we have to take into consideration GG’s draft which was excellent and if that is any indication, this team has finally figured out how to make solid compositions.
As for Counter Logic Gaming, they sit at the completely opposite end of the spectrum. Their loss to Liquid was both humiliating and expected as it played out exactly how we thought it would. Pobelter continues to struggle in the mid lane while Stixxay simply doesn’t have the impact he once had. Wiggily is still a very iffy jungler with his poor decision making, and Ruin is just there.
Given the CLG’s downfall and Golden Guardians’ resurgence in form, we have to side with the boys in yellow. CLG have shown a few flashes of greatness this split, but as of late, they have been disastrous.
Prediction: Golden Guardians -6.5 kills – 1.769
Cloud9 vs Team SoloMid
I’m not ready to believe Cloud9 are a bad team now, but it’s very evident they have his a slump. Well, it’s either that or they don’t care anymore. At the end of the day, Cloud9 don’t need to win any more games and it’s hard to justify saying they are desperate to claim the top seed in the league.
From how it seems, Cloud9 are not taking their games as serious as they did and based on their drafts, it seems like they are in the experimental phase before the playoffs when we can expect them to turn on the jets once more.
Individually, both Nisqy and Zven started to underperform which is a huge factor to consider for this match. As mentioned before, TSM put all their resources into Doublelift and Bjergsen who (usually) carry them to victory, which is exactly what TSM will look to achieve here.
What’s more, TSM decided for a very solid draft against Evil Geniuses yesterday and seeing Zilean mid was both refreshing and exciting thing to see. Doublelift also had a great performance on the recently buffed Caitlyn, whereas Broken Blade did his job as the damage soaker on Malphite.
I’m still a bit skeptical about Spica, but he at least looked solid yesterday, so perhaps there are better things to come from him.
Prediction: TSM +7.5 kills – 1.854
FlyQuest vs Evil Geniuses
I have already praised FlyQuest for their resurgence and they did not fail to impress against 100 Thieves where they completely out-macroed their opponents and secured elder on top of 10 turrets to two and a baron. FlyQuest are a team that is playing very organized and slow, which might not be the most exciting playstyle to watch, but it’s also hard to play against especially against teams that are not too aggressive.
Evil Geniuses are coming into this match following a devastating loss to TSM, where the only player who had any real form of impact was Goldenglue. Huni once again ran it down with 1/6/3 while Bang and Zeyzal were nowhere to be seen. To be fair, Bang could have performed better had he not been put on Ashe into Caitlyn and Morgana, but at the end of the day, that only shows EG’s drafts are not as good as they perhaps should be.
EG’s main strength is their mid laner Goldenglue, which is not optimal, considering how solid FlyQuest’s mid laner PowerOfEvil has been playing as of late. He ended the game against 100 Thieves with 13/0/4 and before that decimated Golden Guardians’ Damonte on Azir (5/0/5) and Liquid’s Jensen on Orianna (1/0/4).
PowerOfEvil died only twice in the last four games and even those two deaths came against Cloud9, who have a strong mid-jungle synergy. There is no hiding the fact that PowerOfEvil is currently the hottest mid laner in the league and as long as FlyQuest can get him ahead, he alone will carry his team to victory.
There is also the fact that EG’s jungler Svenskeren is just not performing well as of late and the same goes for top laner Huni, so FlyQuest have more than one win condition here.
Prediction: FlyQuest – 4.5 kills – 1.917
100 Thieves vs Immortals
Immortals have defeated Dignitas yesterday, but quite frankly, that match should not have ended the way it did. Dignitas were far stronger for most of the game but somehow failed to close out the deal and unfortunately, there is such thing as backdoor in the game which is how Immortals closed out the game.
Another thing to note is that Immortals won the said match solely due to the performances of Insanity, who really lived up to his name and ended the game with 11/1/11 on Corky, effectively contributing 11 kills out of 15. The remaining players on the squad played decently well, but we did not see anything remarkable from either of them.
Even though it’s hard to be too optimistic about Immortals after such a win, there are even fewer reasons to be optimistic about 100 Thieves, who got crushed by FlyQuest yesterday. The biggest problem in 100T’s match was the disastrous performance of support Poome who finished the game 0/10/2. He deserves some slack for his iffy record given that he has just recently joined the LCS, but at the same time, he is also the weakest link in the team, which the opponents will look to exploit.
Two things make me worry for 100 Thieves here. Since Immortals field Xmithe in the jungle, we can trust his experience and knowledge of the game to help him realise where to pressure 100 Thieves, so we are likely in for a bloodbath in the bottom lane. Secondly, I am still not a big fan of Ryoma who at times is completely useless and does nothing to help his team win. Yes, he can occasionally have his outplays and flashy plays. but the consistency is just not there and I don’t see how he will manage to compete with Insanity after his game against Dignitas.
It seems like the only way 100T could win here is via the top lane, but as long as allorim can get on a tank top laner and just farm under his turret, I don’t see how Immortals can’t shut down 100T’s main and only win condition.
Prediction: Immortals to win – 2.24
