LTA
LEC
LCK
LPL
LCPLearn more
Events & Standings
10 thoughts going into LCS Spring Week 2
-
The first week of #LCS is always strange to analyze. The split almost always starts with a **power ranking**. Which, for some reason isn’t a power ranking for who will do well Week 1, but instead a power ranking for who I think will be at the top of the standings after 8 weeks and a double round robin. Yet, inevitably when the number 1 team in my rankings (EG) loses a game to the 7th team in my rankings (CLG), things will start to look all haywire. To make things worse, the 10th place team in my power rankings (TSM) will manage to go 2-0 and sit tied for first. Obviously, Bo1 is an inherently swingy format, which is good for allowing for upsets and variance, but it’s a nightmare when trying to make snap judgments on teams. Anyways... I’ll do my best. Here’s 10 thoughts for Week 2.
1 - Watching FlyQuest dismantle Team Liquid and then later Dignitas— it’s not an overreaction to call them the best team in the LCS. I also think it’s telling when a new player to the LCS gets near unanimous respect like Prince does. Nearly every LCS player asked in this [“Who is going to be the breakout LCS star of 2023” video][1] mentioned Prince in some way.
The most astonishing thing about FLY’s dominance in Week 1 is actually that they aren’t even at full strength yet. Eyla is their intended support starter but they played Week 1 with former C9 support Winsome. It will be interesting to track how long FLY’s win-streak can last.
[1]: https://twitter.com/LCSOfficial/status/1620527476681097218?s=20&t=eI894LjJ5Pqpk0u5h-notQ
2 - One of the most anticipated matchups of Week 1 was the 2022 Summer Finals rematch between C9 and 100T. C9 completely dominated them. Fudge solo killed Tenacity early, and the C9 bottom lane proved they can play the new 2023 meta with a great Ashe/Heimer game. Blaber also added **11 kills** on Wukong.
The main question mark for 2023 C9 is going to continue to be Diplex, but in Week 1 he looked solid. He had a strong showing versus Bjergsen while playing Akali versus Sylas, and even though he fell behind in Game 2 as Sylas versus Irelia (in part because he roamed top early in a failed dive attempt), he outplayed a crucial 2v1 turret dive and still managed a strong showing in teamfights. For me, C9 versus CLG and C9 versus FLY are the two most anticipated Week 2 matchups. Keep your eyes open for this team.
3 - TSM was easily the most surprising team of the week. Almost all analysts predicted them to finish towards 8-10th in the standings, yet they picked up wins against Immortals and more importantly, Team Liquid, in their first week. How did they do it? My surface level analysis would point to their dragon control, as they secured a dragon soul in both games. But securing soul is often a consequence of something else, rather than just deciding to take dragons. It looked to me like Bugi and Maple were the main members of TSM driving action, while Solo and their bottom lane played conservative, stable League of Legends.
Honestly, that formula could result in a fairly good year for TSM. With that being said, it’s only one week, and even the most diehard TSM fans are ready for this team to fall back to earth a little bit with matches against EG and 100T in Week 2.
4 - CONTINUITY. If I were to go back in time one week, I would change CLG from 7th to 5th on my pre-season power rankings. [Reading my article from last week,][1] I did everything to explain why CLG shouldn’t be ranked 7th and then still ranked them 7th... It defied logic.
Anyways, they proved the power of continuity last week. They easily dismantled a Dignitas team who hadn’t been playing together for more than a week, and then they stuck around and outscaled an EG team who is still adjusting to a new top laner and ADC. The most impressive thing for me about CLG in Week 2 was actually Palafox’s post-game interview after defeating EG where he admitted that last year’s CLG wouldn’t have been able to win that game. I think it’s highly likely CLG walks out of Week 2 3-1, still near the top of the standings.
[1]: https://lolesports.com/article/10-thoughts-going-into-lcs-spring-week-1/blt21f08be959d8a1ef
5 - Somehow, 100T was one of the least surprising teams in Week 1. They faced two teams in C9 and IMT who are extremely far apart in perceived strength and the games looked about how you would expect. They failed to find a way to gain a meaningful advantage against C9, and they fairly easily dictated the game and beat Immortals in 28 minutes.
The most promising part of the week for me would have to be Doublelift. In their game against IMT he showed extremely aggressive laning, at one point diving Tactical as Zeri versus Sivir to not only deny a large wave but also get the kill for himself. Considering Doublelift took two years off of competitive play – he started the split looking really good.
6 - It was a really odd week for EG. They actually had the best early game of all LCS teams with an average gold advantage of +3354 at 15 minutes. Where they struggled mightily was in the mid-game, where they looked incredibly disconnected and didn’t find a way to flex any of their early game advantages. As Vulcan alluded to in [his interview with Travis Gafford][1], EG are kind of like two teams coming together from last year. Vulcan, Inspired, and Jojopyun are from 2022 EG. Whereas Ssumday, FBI, and Freeze (coach) are from 2022 100T. This explains some of their mid-game issues. As Vulcan said, “It’s not like we don’t know what to do, we just have different opinions”. It’s going to take some time for EG to come to a consensus on their mid-game, but personally I’m not concerned with their ability to do so.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njYSNnoimGY&ab_channel=TravisGafford
7 - This team definitely takes the title of “Most Disappointing Week 1 Performance”. The rebuilt Korean Team Liquid failed to win a single game in Week 1, and had a dismal loss to TSM. There were a *few* bright spots for TL. Yeon and CoreJJ had an impressive early laning phase versus Neo and Chime, getting a few 2v2 kills in lane, and Summit managed to take 4 plates versus Solo’s Ornn in laning phase. That was it though; the rest was pain. Summit was picked on during the mid and late game of both matches, oftentimes dying while trying to pressure. Haeri looked unfortunately like a player new to the LCS (which he is).
One thing about Week 1 for Team Liquid is their drafts featured less scaling than their opponents in both games. It’s going to be interesting how TL respond in Week 2. Generally speaking, scaling drafts find more success early in the season as teams aren’t able to capitalize on small advantages well. TL play IMT and GG in Week 2. It’ll be a huge opportunity to bounce back in the standings.
8 - If TL was the most disappointing Week 1 team, DIG was a close second. But to me, they have a pretty valid reason. For one, they were still not playing with their intended starting five (IgNar still not with the team). On top of that, their top laner (Armut) only arrived at the start of the week, so the team tried to play on stage with nearly no practice. They also played against CLG and FLY, teams that spent the off-season playing in Korea, and in CLG’s case, spent 2022 practicing together in the LCS.
Even if they have a valid excuse for starting 0-2, they now face a real danger of starting 0-4. 100T and EG are both strong opponents, and DIG don’t want to dig themselves a massive hole to start the season.
9 - Definitely a disappointing start to the year for GG with losses to EG and C9; however, based on my completely subjective rankings they lost to the two best teams in the LCS, and they didn’t have their intended starting mid laner in Gori. UNFORTUNATELY, their schedule doesn’t get that much easier as they face off against FlyQuest on Thursday and TL on Friday. Looking at their schedule, it’s more and more likely that this team starts the season VERY rough, but we’ll look up after 4 weeks and see that they’re only a game or two outside of playoffs.
10 - They had a golden opportunity to start the year off with a win when they had TSM as their opponent for the first game. They even started the game off with a lead, and had Revenge playing Fiora versus. K’Sante (a matchup that Revenge prefers). That was the peak of their weekend though, as they didn’t show cohesion for the rest of the TSM match or for their 100T game. It looked suspiciously like the IMT team that struggled towards the back end of 2022, despite switching out mid and bot lane entirely. As always though, it’s best not to overreact to one week's worth of games. IMT plays TL and CLG in Week 2 to try and pick up their first win.
