I present a thought experiment this week: What if these games were seen not as single games with immediate reactions, but as **best-of-threes**? Would it allow us to look at teams in a more holistic manner, especially from draft to draft?
Never mind pesky things like, teams not playing the same opponent. In fact, I'll try to avoid mentioning the team names of opponents at all just to help audience immersion (although I will mention specifically targeting a role in draft or a role on the Rift).
Let's get it.
**1. Cloud9: 3-0 (Summer record: 4-2, overall record: 17-7)**
The suspension of disbelief starts with Cloud9 and 100 Thieves, not because it's shocking that both teams went undefeated, but because in a proper best-of-three, you can't win three games.
Let's just...ignore that for the sake of this experiment, shall we?
Cloud9's first game was brilliant. It was everything that we love about this team: explosive side lanes and an ability to capitalize upon and further their advantages like no other North American team. Perkz's LeBlanc counterpick response to the Soraka in draft almost immediately took over the game as C9 smashed en route to a perfect finish.
With the mid lane champion pool as open as it is — especially with the ability to flex certain champions top, jungle, or support — Perkz's flexibility and Fudge's burgeoning champion pool are both massive advantages for C9. This was also apparent in their third game, where they focused bans almost exclusively on the bot lane, flexed Lee Sin mid, and Gwen made her way through the draft for Fudge. Gwen isn't an automatic win (yet) but Fudge specifically seems remarkably comfortable on the champion and so teams in the future should probably spare a ban for her if they're not going to pick her on blue side against C9.
C9's hiccup was Game 2, where they managed to pull out a win against CLG due more to CLG's mistakes and their scaling double AD carry composition with Vulcan's Lulu. But you know what, it's fine to drop a game in a best-of-three, and here they didn't even drop it, they just fell behind due to Lee Sin's early pressure in lanes. C9 is one of the teams in the LCS that people are the most reactionary about, and they really shouldn't be. With the amount of talent on this team, a wide-open champion pool for the mid lane (save most regular control mages and we'll get to that in the TSM section) and a coaching staff that has proven they can expedite the team's learning curve, C9 will still be contending for the title come playoffs.
**2. 100 Thieves: 3-0 (Summer record: 5-1, overall record: 16-8)**
Last week, 100 Thieves tripled down on the Karma pick for Abbedagge, refining their draft with every game. What began as a Karma mid to buff FBI's Ezreal evolved into a fearsome Xin Zhao/Karma combination for Closer and Abbedagge as they refined their preexisting synergy. This was supplemented by stronger side lanes like Gwen for Ssumday and Kog'Maw for FBI.
This week they showcased a new triptych of drafts around Abbedagge's Akali, giving Closer a strong early-to-mid game pick in Rumble, and keeping things consistent in the bot lane with Kai'Sa for FBI while Ssumday moved off of Lee Sin in Game 3 onto his signature Gnar. Ssumday has always been an interesting top laner — one of the best in his role but arguably a player who does better when there are strong carry threats around him that he's helping facilitate rather than being a constant primary carry. He looks much happier on this current team, where either Abbedagge or FBI (or both) can be the main carry threats.
What's most impressive about 100 Thieves' drafting strategy — outside of the fact that you could slide in one or two adjustments per draft and track draft evolution in sets of threes — is how they've executed said drafts. 100 Thieves seem to be just as comfortable with buffing Closer and using him as the focal point of a composition as they are letting Abbedagge's Akali take over a game.
Nearly every player has credited the arrival of Reapered to the team as the reason behind their success. I think it's twofold. Obviously Reapered has given them a strong direction and framework from practice that is showing up on stage. But the other part of their success is the fact that they've been able to execute two concretely different playstyles so well, showcasing that this team should not have the same meta-dependent issues that plagued their spring iteration.
**3. Team Liquid: 2-1 (Summer record: 3-3, overall record: 15-9)**
With the rise of 100 Thieves and clarification on the Alphari situation (he's out until June 27 at least) Team Liquid is in an odd spot. They're presumably waiting for their all-star, world-class top laner to return while also integrating Jenkins into the lineup in the meantime. Although TL stock is down in the community, they're a few plays in Game 2 away from an undefeated week.
I was happy to see the Kalista come out for Tactical in Game 1 — she's been more contended in LCK than any other region and I liked that they brought it out. The bot lane meta this summer is wider than spring and while Kai'Sa and Tristana are still going strong along with Senna/Tahm Kench, we have the addition of Ezreal courtesy of Divine Sunderer, Varus, and hypercarries like Jinx or Kog'Maw that can be paired with a team Shurelya's or a Thresh. As TL continue to integrate Jenkins into the lineup, hopefully Santorin can have a stronger impact on lanes early and TL can use their bot lane as their primary pressure point — a style that we already know they're adept at playing that will take further pressure of Jenkins and allow him to continue to get champions he's comfortable on.
**4. Evil Geniuses: 2-1 (Summer record: 2-4, overall record: 12-12)**
Before I really knew or understood Uzi as a player, one of my friends described him to me like this: most players will only go for a play if the chances of pulling it off are about 60 percent or above but Uzi will go for the 20 percent success-80 percent failure play because he always thinks he can win.
Evil Geniuses mid laner Jiizuke seems to have a similar mindset.
Jiizuke's largest faults are that he sometimes fails to group with his team for objectives or doesn't time his side-lane pushes well with the rest of his team. Yet his greatest strengths were also on display this past week in his willingness to go for these proactive engages, trusting in his own mechanics that he'll be able to pull them off with ease. North America arguably needs more players like this, not less.
All of EG's losses last week were by fairly slim margins, and this week we saw them regroup while continuing to place confidence in Jiizuke, rookie Danny (congratulations to Danny on his high school graduation, by the way), and veteran top laner Impact. The flex of Akali to Impact in Game 1 while putting Jiizuke on Lee Sin was smart, and in Game 2, Jiizuke's Akali was one of the reasons why EG managed to grind out a nearly hour-long win.
**5. Counter Logic Gaming: 1-2 (Summer record: 1-5, overall record: 6-18)**
In a best-of-three format, there's always one team that really wants a game back because they came so close to winning (even if the end result of that series was a 2-0). We saw this with EDward Gaming's win with a deficit over Invictus Gaming thanks to Flandre's Gwen in the LPL this past week. And we saw it with Counter Logic Gaming's second outing in LCS Week 2.
Broxah has been vocal about how much he loves playing junglers who interact with their lanes more frequently (in fairness, most junglers have). He joked on Twitter around the start of the Mid-Season Invitational about his ire that Lee Sin became meta as a solo laner before he was meta as a jungler again. Now, thanks to Broxah and Dardoch, Lee Sin is making his way back into the LCS jungle champion pool. As shown by their win in Game 1 and their narrow loss in Game 2, Lee Sin is a champion that should be banned against Broxah, because meta or no, he will make it work.
**6. DIGNITAS QNTMPAY: 1-2 (Summer record: 3-3, overall record: 14-10)**
Even with the Yusui substitution, this Dignitas team revolves around Dardoch in the jungle and his large champion pool. With the jungle meta slowly opening up, Dardoch was already the first jungler in the LCS to flex Lee Sin back into the jungle and his comfort on the champion was visibly obvious. Dardoch has also shown a willingness to be involved with his lanes early, especially in Game 2 where he immediately ganked bot side for Neo's Samira, knowing how important it was to get that lane in a good position for Neo while also being aware of the opposing jungler's clear on Rumble.
This Dignitas team is always going to be interesting to watch, not only because of Dardoch himself but because of the talented younger players like Soligo, Fakegod, Neo, and now Yusui who stepped into the mid lane this past week for Soligo. Their teamfighting is still strong and now it's up to how coordinated they can become elsewhere on the map especially with objective setups. Game 1 in particular had Dignitas setting up significantly later than was needed to even contest opponents on drakes, never mind set up for drakes themselves.
**7. FlyQuest: 1-2 (Summer record: 3-3, overall record: 9-15)**
If FlyQuest were an LPL team, they would be one of the bottom ones who can easily manage to take games (and sometimes series) against tougher opponents, but don't have the coordination or wherewithal to find any strong identity despite having some good players. Where last year's FlyQuest lineup had mostly known quantities across the board that molded the team into having a specific style, this year's lineup is full of mostly-developing or less experienced LCS talent, save Licorice. It's no surprise that Licorice has been the most heavily-targeted player on the team by FlyQuest's opponents.
That being said, we saw some smart adaptations from FlyQuest. After Licorice was immediately set back with top-side dives in Game 1 (a perfect game by their opponents) they anticipated this in Game 2 and were ready for it. I also appreciate FlyQuest's willingness to experiment in draft, even if the Game 1 Soraka didn't pan out.
**8. Golden Guardians: 1-2 (Summer record: 2-4, overall record: 5-19)**
Ablazeolive's champion pool should be further tested this summer, but cursory glances show that he probably shouldn't be given Zoe any more in the draft since he can singlehandedly change teamfight dynamics with her. Even in their Game 1 loss, Ablazeolive was constantly challenging opponents with key sleeps and damage.
With AblazeOlive growing more adjusted in his role as a carry on this team, it's also been good to see how much stability Solo has brought to the top side and — to a slightly lesser but still noticeable extent — Chime has brought to the bottom lane. This team is now an interesting mix of veterans Solo and Stixxay with three developing players in Iconic, Ablazeolive, and Chime.
**9. TSM: 1-2 (Summer record: 4-2, overall record: 16-8)**
After a 3-0 Week 1, many people were ready to crown TSM as the best team in the region, even with the team somewhat stubbornly sticking to their slower-paced, scaling for mid-to-late playstyle.
TSM would have lost their fictional best-of-three this week and most of the community blamed POE's Lucian.
One fact that should be taken into consideration before complaining that PowerOfEvil should only be on control mages is current AP itemization (it's not great for control mages)! POE himself smartly brought Riftmaker Orianna to the table in Week 1 as a visible adjustment. It shouldn't be shocking that TSM are trying out different compositions with POE on the likes of Lucian or Viego. They're in a good position in the standings and there are still 21 games to go. This could be less about experimentation and making sure that they can play outside of their comfort zone and more about how to play towards their strengths in the current meta. Both POE and Lucian are strong laners and if he doesn't want to play more melee-style champions Lucian is a strong pick. It's then up to how TSM plays around it, and the team is visibly unused to snowballing strong lanes early and aggressively pressing their advantages — unless it's SwordArt engaging ahead of the rest of TSM.
Regrouping and going forward, with so many aggressive melee champions in meta, perhaps all TSM needs is time to be less hesitant early while also picking better fights around setups and item spikes. Regardless, I think these losses would seem less punishing to viewers in a best-of format and it's interesting that TSM are trying to find alternatives in the mid lane while avoiding most of the melee picks available.
**10. Immortals: 0-3 (Summer record: 3-3, overall record: 10-14)**
Another suspension of disbelief is required here because a team cannot go 0-3 in a best-of-three either.
Putting that aside, it's interesting to track Immortals through their three losses this past weekend, especially with the unexpected substitution of Pretty for Insanity in Game 1. I personally agree with Immortals coach Guilhoto on the limited opportunities for Academy or amateur players to move up into starting positions in the LCS and again, in a best-of situation, it's not unheard of to substitute a player out to give a rookie a change at a larger stage. Pretty made some mistakes, wasn't the reason why IMT lost Game 1, and hopefully now can head back down to Academy with a few valuable lessons. It's not ideal, but it's a good way to get him better practice.
For the rest of IMT, the issue is still consistency. Last split we saw this team put together impressive wins only to drop games they shouldn't have due to misexecution of their composition or laning mistakes. Even that has improved this split, with some of their losses (like Game 2 this past week) coming from stronger play exploiting IMT's champions or team compositions early. The Game 2 bot lane gank from Xin Zhao knowing that Xerxe's Rumble was doing a full clear and that Raes' and Destiny would be set back as Varus and Thresh was a smart read from IMT's opponents.
