100 Thieves vs Team Liquid
Team Liquid will look to continue their perfect run this Saturday when they meet with 100 Thieves, who are coming into the match after suffering a complete stomp at the hands of Cloud9. This marked their second defeat of the split, after 100T already a loss against Evil Genuises.
Although 100T lost their opening two matches, we can’t criticize them too much for those losses, since they played two of the strongest teams in the league. That, however, does not necessarily mean they played well or that we can expect better performances from them in Week 2, especially considering how poorly Meteos and Ryoma have been playing so far, while Ssumday is just not playing at the level 100T need him. Cody Sun is the only player in 100T how is playing at least decently well, but considering he is facing Tactical and will likely be put under pressure from Broxah, I don’t see how 100T will manage to execute their bottom lane win condition.
Liquid have been averaging 12.5 kills per game against teams who looked far better compared to 100T, while they gave up only four deaths per average. 100T, on the other side, averaged only five kills per game and died on average 17 times. The biggest culprits for 100T’s poor stats are Meteos and Ryoma, who racked in 12 and 10 deaths respectively.
In all fairness, TL boasts with better players in all lanes, except for top lane, but even there, Ssumday has not shown enough for me to believe he can defeat Impact.
Prediction: Team Liquid – 5.5 kills – 1.925
Golden Guardians vs Counter Logic Gaming
Golden Guardians are entering this match following a horrendous performance against Team Liquid on Monday. Well, to be fair, it was not so much Golden Guardians’ poor performance that led to their defeat but rather their draft. What exactly were GG thinking when they picked Thresh into Aphelios and leaving Braum open is beyond my comprehension but we can at least hope they have learned a thing or two from that match.
CLG, on the other side lost the opening match of LCS Summer against EG, but managed to bounce back with a win against Immortals. I don’t rank that win too highly, however, especially considering Immortals were leading for most of the game. Stixxay had a solid performance on that day and dealt 35.7% of his team’s damage, which was impressive, but outside of that, CLG failed to impress.
Their vision control is bad and their approach to teamfights is just not at the level needed to compete against top LEC teams. The main problem here is that CLG rely too much on Stixxay to play good and since he is facing FBI, I don’t see how CLG will execute their win condition. Furthermore, Damonte has been playing exceptionally well recently, He was the main actor in GG’s match against Team Liquid, dealing 33.9% of his team’s damage and while we are giving out praises, Closer played better than his final record would suggest.
GG are a level above CLG and I’m surprised to see them priced so high. If they can fix their drafts I might start believing this team is capable of making a deep run into the playoffs, nevertheless, they should have no issues against the wonky CLG.
Prediction: Golden Guardians to win – 1.684 – Best Bet
Immortals vs Team SoloMid
If Immortals manage to come even close to defeating TSM, it will be one of the biggest upsets of the season. I’m not trying to be too critical of Immortals, but they deserve to be criticised for their decision to not field Xmithie and instead play with Potluck. While Potluck is not a terrible player, not fielding Xmithie means Immortals lost both a leader and an arguably far better jungler.
The lack of a proper leader was clearly seen in their loss against CLG; where Immortals held onto +2k gold lead in the early-mid game, but when the late game rolled around, Immortals fell flat.
TSM are still piecing things together with their freshened up roster, which was expected considering they have added a high-profile ADC to their team. This team will likely need more time to gel together and show their full potential, but even now the individual quality this team has, easily puts them amongst the top-four teams in LCS.
Looking back at their game against Dignitas, Bjergsen and Doublelift both showed up big time and death well over 60% of their team’s total damage. I was the most impressed with Bjergsen who was by far the biggest actor in TSM’s win with 39.5% damage dealt with only 23.9% gold share and he achieved that against Froggen, who is one of the most consistent mid laners in the league.
Comparing these two sides, Immortals are a level below TSM, who despite not showing their full potential should not have any issues winning here.
Prediction: TSM -6.5 kills – 1.884
