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League of Legends Championship Series: Season 5

zkylon

zkylewd
really rush was one step ahead of saint for the whole game

were the gambit games worth watching? forgot to wake up early for em
 
Game 2: Gravity v TiP

Gravity pick a strange comp with Rumble and Fizz, so they have low waveclear, no tanks and surprisingly little engage (Rek'Sai and Fizz's R are about it). TiP draft something very similar to what they just ran, centred around Vladimir and Sivir, replacing the banned Lee with Vi. Like how TiP take Vi and Morgana (Vi's biggest counter) on the same rotation. They have much, much better engage and appear to be fine if they don't get Equalized or stomped in lane phase.

Gravity late invade Rush's jungle and deny the Gromp start for the bot lane. Rush reacts by riskily clearing Saint's entire blue side jungle, relying on Impact's pressure to defend him from Rumble. Saint ends up behind. Rush buys a Brutalizer as his mid laner gets killed. No problem. He holds lane, pushes Saint out of his jungle, ganks mid and gets his team's first kill, then forces drag. All this without a jungle item. Map becomes lop-sided at this point - Keane very strong in mid lane with three kills, Impact with a large lead in top lane and Rush looking to work with him. Gravity make a great rotation to the top lane to punish Rush and Impact.

Then Gravity crush Impulse 4-1 in a teamfight at dragon. Excellent play by Keane to draw fire and terrible mistakes by Impulse - wasting or not using ults then all diving on top of a fed Fizz mid Playful/Trickster. Impulse take the hint and slow things right down after this, using their top lane match up to trade tower for dragon and farm efficiently across the map. Gravity realise their comp is awful in the late game and try to force baron, but Impulse stop it easily. Then they get it anyway as Impulse commit 5v4 on to Fizz and Rush misclicks (I assume) his ult onto Hauntzer after Impact and Adrian locked Keane down. Even with baron, it looks like their odd comp will struggle to close out.

Yet Gravity slowly advance the game with careful splitpushing, and with Saint building a Hydra and Bunny building a Banner, they are able to gradually break through Impulse's strong wave clear and deadly engage threat. XwX's Vladimir essentially does nothing but kill minions in the last third of this game. When Impulse tried to sneak a dragon to stop Gravity reaching 4, Gravity punished them hard with two towers and an inhib, and use their late game knowledge and execution to level the series 1-1.

1.0 Rotational play
 
Game 3: TiP v Gravity

With Fizz banned, Gravity find another weird comp to run, this time bringing Vladimir and Shyvana (running Smite/TP, for Cinderhulk health stack) as their solo lanes. TiP take a teamfight comp as usual, with lots of CC and burst.

The double smite lets Gravity get a big edge in the lane swap opening, threebuffing TiP and getting solo xp for both Saint and Hauntzer. The opening actually works really well, getting first blood and first dragon. TiP come back and even things out thanks to their bot lane and XwX bullying out Keane's Vladimir (as expected in the matchup). Some smart rotations give them a small gold lead heading into the mid game, but this entire match essentially comes down to one 5-1 teamfight forced by TiP at baron at 26 minutes. How they won that fight so hard despite tanking baron for the whole time so early in the game I'm not too sure, but it ended the game as a contest.

1.0 Teamfighting
 
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All of Gravity is on tilt.
 
Game 4: Gravity v TiP

Gravity pick a very standard comp with Maokai, Orianna and Graves, and a bruiser jungler in Rek'Sai. Impulse respond with another heavy engage comp, this time picking Zed last. I actually think Impulse need to get ahead - they have low waveclear and Vlad and Zed are pretty controllable if things are even at 30 minutes.

Good thing Impulse get first blood on XwX before minions spawn in a silly level 1. Gravity's champions simply don't have the level one damage Impulse's do - Boomerang Blade, Zed's Shuriken, and Vi's Q each do a ton of damage, so they shouldn't lose once Binding is down and no one can be bursted. Rush camps the hell out of mid lane, first blowing Ori's summoners, then getting a kill when Saint tries to help Keane push out so he can base, then diving for another kill (but dying himself to Saint). XwX is well set up to carry thanks to the pressure from Rush, 3-0 7 minutes in. Rush immediately goes top and gets a kill for himself on Graves.

Very similar to game one, when Gravity had a similar comp - Rush just takes over and once he gets Impulse ahead they start to roam and invade over and over. Gravity tries do something in bot lane and boom, 7-1. 7k gold lead 13 minutes in. GG.

1.0 - Laning phase.

Playoff Totals:

3.5 - Teamfighting
3.5 - Laning phase
3.0 - Rotational play
2.5 - Individual play
1.5 - Objective calls/preparation/vision
1.0 - Team composition

Gravity kept losing their hold on Impulse in the lane phase, and their weird comps had mixed success.
 

zkylon

zkylewd
Can't wait to see Impact solo stomp Dyrus top lane now. Really seems like he has found his feet now in NA.

very unlikely they'll meet head to head since tsm lane swaps every game

tho tip isn't c9 or clg and their bot lane is kind of unremarkable so they might opt into the 2v2
 
With the new point system they gonna need to win 1st or 2nd this split if they want any shot at Worlds which kind of sucks. Oh well nice to see Peke back.
 
Congrats to Xpeke on making it back to the LCS with his own org - not many who have left have ever returned to top (domestic) level LoL so quickly, as the likes of Mithy know all too well.

Time for some actual new blood - tonight either Enemy eSports ("NME") or Team Dragon Knights ("TDK"), whoever wins what promises to be a gruelling best of 5, will enter the NA LCS, replacing Team Coast. NME's roster, top to support, reads Flarez (American), Trashy (Danish), InnoX (Canadian), otter (American) and Bodydrop (Canadian). InnoX was of course formerly EG's top laner throughout 2014 and Trashy was a successful jungler in the EU Challenger scene throughout the same year. They are reasonably strong favourites, having displayed strong drafts, strategic variety and consistency throughout the NA CS and their semi-final against Final Five. Trashy is their player most likely to do something a little special, and their bot lane the most likely to make a costly error. Flarez' Rumble and bodydrop's Morgana are likely bans against them.

TDK's roster runs Seraph (Korean), Kez (American), Kyle (Korean), LouisXGeeGee (Korean), Smoothie (Canadian). The team plays in Korean, with Smoothie only able to communicate in English via Kez (who speaks both languages). They've shown impressive strategic variety themselves in qualifying for the Challenger Series playoffs, but had to rely on Seraph to provide what most go down as one of the most heroic individual carries of the 2015 professional LoL season so far to pull back their semi-final against Team Fusion. Although Seraph earned a poor reputation with his weak displays for CLG during last year's Summer Split, apparently racked by nerves in a foreign country playing LANs for the first time in his life, he has consistently delivered dominant top laning performances for TDK, on champions as different as Mundo, Irelia and Kennen, and has been crucial to their success so far. Their bot lane, and particularly their AD carry, has been prone to overaggression and silly deaths, and against Gate in the semi-final Kyle struggled to hold his lane too. I expect Nidalee to be banned against them since both Seraph and Kez play it in different ways.

I'm cheering on TDK tonight, but I'd like to see both of these teams make it to the LCS in time for next split. Two good sets of players who seem like they have strong support from their organisations.

The programme, presumably presented by Phreak and Zirene, will start 50 minutes from this post.
 

bokn

Banned
Congrats to Xpeke on making it back to the LCS with his own org - not many who have left have ever returned to top (domestic) level LoL so quickly, as the likes of Mithy know all too well.

Time for some actual new blood - tonight either Enemy eSports ("NME") or Team Dragon Knights ("TDK"), whoever wins what promises to be a gruelling best of 5, will enter the NA LCS, replacing Team Coast. NME's roster, top to support, reads Flarez (American), Trashy (Danish), InnoX (Canadian), otter (American) and Bodydrop (Canadian). InnoX was of course formerly EG's top laner throughout 2014 and Trashy was a successful jungler in the EU Challenger scene throughout the same year. They are reasonably strong favourites, having displayed strong drafts, strategic variety and consistency throughout the EU CS and their semi-final against Final Five. Trashy is their player most likely to do something a little special, and their bot lane the most likely to make a costly error. Flarez' Rumble and bodydrop's Morgana are likely bans against them.

TDK's roster runs Seraph (Korean), Kez (American), Kyle (Korean), LouisXGeeGee (Korean), Smoothie (Canadian). The team plays in Korean, with Smoothie only able to communicate in English via Kez (who speaks both languages). They've shown impressive strategic variety themselves in qualifying for the Challenger Series playoffs, but had to rely on Seraph to provide what most go down as one of the most heroic individual carries of the 2015 professional LoL season so far to pull back their semi-final against Team Fusion. Although Seraph earned a poor reputation with his weak displays for CLG during last year's Summer Split, apparently racked by nerves in a foreign country playing LANs for the first time in his life, he has consistently delivered dominant top laning performances for TDK, on champions as different as Mundo, Irelia and Kennen, and has been crucial to their success so far. Their bot lane, and particularly their AD carry, has been prone to overaggression and silly deaths, and against Gate in the semi-final Kyle struggled to hold his lane too. I expect Nidalee to be banned against them since both Seraph and Kez play it in different ways.

I'm cheering on TDK tonight, but I'd like to see both of these teams make it to the LCS in time for next split. Two good sets of players who seem like they have strong support from their organisations.

The programme, presumably presented by Phreak and Zirene, will start 50 minutes from this post.
Appreciate this
 
Congrats to NME. Great effort from them. Trashy has a big future. I don't think they'll be challenging for worlds (Phreak going a bit nuts there with the hype) but they should make mid-table with Team8 and Gravity. Innox's Kassadin in games 3 and 4 was huge.

Seraph stepped up to the big match and made a real go of it, but it wasn't enough. Kyle had his head in his hands at the end - he knows if he got Zhonya's or R off game 5 was probably guaranteed as NME had fully committed to that dive, and he had time to react. Crumbz might be right that he and Louis tilted after game 2. Need to regroup and get ready for Dignitas/Winterfox - they're well capable of beating those squads if they can get the draft right. I'd make them >65% against the current Dignitas (Gamsu, Azingy, Shiphtur, CoreJJ, Kiwikid). Gamsu ain't Flaresz; Kez will walk all over Azingy. Up to Winterfox whether they want them or Fusion.
 
Little factoid to keep in mind when TSM play Team Impulse in the NA LCS semi-finals:

The last time TSM lost a knock-out series LAN to a North American team other than Cloud9 was against CLG in July 2012, at MLG Anaheim. It was meaningless, as TSM won the event anyway (loser's bracket format in operation). The last time they lost a meaningful LAN series to a North American team not named Cloud9 was at a October 2011 event held by IGN in Atlantic City, where they were beaten first by Epik Gamer and then by CLG. Epik Gamer's roster had Westrice and Dyrus playing together on it. CLG's did not have Doublelift.

List of series losses TSM have suffered in reverse chronology:

vs. Unicorns of Love at IEM San Jose (0-2)
vs. Samsung White at S4 Worlds (1-3)
vs. Cloud9 at NA LCS Spring Season Playoffs 2014 (0-3)
vs. Cloud9 at NA LCS Summer Season Playoffs 2013 (0-3)
vs. CLG.EU and Azubu Blaze at IPL5 (both 0-2)
vs. Azubu Frost at S2 Worlds (0-2)
vs. Azubu Blaze twice at MLG Summer Arena 2012 (0-3 and 0-2)
vs. CLG at MLG Anaheim (1-2, but TSM won the tournament anyway)
vs. CLG at IPL4 Las Vegas (0-2, but TSM won the tournament anyway)
vs. Moscow 5 at IEM Kiev (1-2)
vs. Epik Gamer at MLG Providence 2011 (1-2, but TSM won the tournament anyway)
vs. Epik Gamer and CLG at IGN ProLeague Atlantic City (1-2 and 0-2)
vs. CLG at IEM Cologne (0-2)
vs. aAa at S1 Worlds (1-2 and 0-1)

All other losses that I can see were either online or in group stage formats (e.g. Season 3 Worlds).

I grant that this record tells you more about how few competitive LAN series are played each season in the post-LCS era of League of Legends than anything else, and TSM's international performances (IEM Worlds IX the honourable exception) have never been strong, but TSM's domestic record is absurd. It's just that Cloud9's record since arriving on the scene is more absurd still, so it tends to be overlooked.
 
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