Team SoloMid vs Golden Guardians – LCS 2020 Summer playoffs
The first League of Legends Championship Series Summer playoffs fixture will see Team SoloMid clash with Golden Guardians in what promises to be an exciting match and a true test for TSM’s consistency as well as GG’s quality. While TSM won the last match with GG last week, a Bo5 series is a completely different thing than a Bo1, and on top of that GG looked like they could have won that game, so I would not put too much emphasis on that result.
Overall, it’s safe to say that these two teams match up nicely, since they both rely heavily on their bottom lanes – TSM on Doublelift, while GG on FBI. Comparing the two ADCs, Doublelift is without a doubt a more established player, but performances-wise, there is not really a lot to set them apart.
Doublelift finished the regular season with 4.2 KDA, which is slightly below FBI’s 4.7. Both are also efficient farmers with Doublelift averaging 9.9 CSPM and FBI 9.6, however, it’s FBI who is a better laner as his stats would suggest. He averaged 10 CSD @15 while Doublelift has 8. Furthermore, FBI has 387 GD @15 while Doublelift has -19.
Another thing working in GG’s favour when it comes to the bottom lane is Closer, who has one of the highest bottom lane proximities out of all junglers, which should in theory help GG get FBI ahead and look to play around him in the mid-late game. What’s more, I would rank huhi higher than Treatz in the support match-up since he is a player that tends to use his deep champion pool to play around establishing a bottom lane-dominant duo.
Moving away from the bottom lane, the mid matchup will likely be the most exciting to watch. Not only will we see a clash between Bjergsen and Damonte, the meta shakeup after patch 10.16 had made it possible for mid laners (as well as ADC/top) to abuse Lucian, who has received significant buffs and can be a real lane threat in any position.
Talking about Lucian as a triple flex pick, TSM could, in theory, benefit from that since they are known for a very diverse champion pool, which should give them an edge in the draft, even if only for the first game of the series. Doublelift is also know for being very efficient on Lucian so there’s also that.
Moving back to the mid lane, Damonte is statistically a worse player than Bjergsen, but his strength does not come from wining lanes, but instead focusing on roam-heavy mid laners to help his side lanes – especially bottom lane. Additionally, we rarely see Damonte lose his lane, since he is a very smart player and on top of that is mechanically gifted enough to go toe-to-toe with any player. Top lane is 50/50.
The only and the biggest issue with GG is their poor mid-late game. While this team can and usually will get a substantial lead early on due to their strong laners, they rarely manage to translate that lead into a victory (as seen in their previous match against TSM). TSM, on the other side, can be potent in mid game but they also often make silly mistakes which usually cost them their leads or outright lose them their games.
TSM are a bit too hyped up ahead of the playoffs in my book, and many people tend to underestimate Golden Guardians, likely due to their 0-2 week when they lost to TSM and Evil Genuises. But, it’s worth noting they were 8-3 before that which includes a win against C9.
Overall, TSM still look like the stronger team, in most part due to Bjergsen’s recent resurgence in form and the fact that they will likely work better around all the meta changes. Having said that, Golden Guardians could prove to be a real threat. In their last match GG led by over 4k gold but lost due to poor mid game, which suggests that they can easily make TSM sweat if only they can enter the game with a more systematic approach.
To be fair, Golden Guardians should easily win at least one map and I would not be surprised if they manage to win two, since TSM, as much as we can praise the individual quality, are not as clean as perhaps they should be. 3-2 win for TSM!
Prediction: Golden Guardians +1.5 maps – 2.23 Pinnacle
