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10 thoughts going into Lock In Finals Weekend
Let's get it.
**1. A nod of appreciation for Team Liquid's staff and players**
When Team Liquid's Academy coach Jake "Spawn" Tiberi joined the analyst desk last week I asked him how much time the main team had managed to practice together.
"What main team?" was his response.
Team Liquid's intended starting roster is Gabriël "Bwipo" Rau, Lucas "Santorin" Larsen, Søren "Bjergsen" Bjerg, Steven "Hans sama" Live, and Jo "CoreJJ" Yong-in. Due to extenuating circumstances around CoreJJ's green card, they have not been able to start this lineup yet in Lock In, rotating between bot lane duos substituting in academy bot laner Sean "Yeon" Sung or support Bill "Eyla" Nguyen. Last week, on top of these other issues, Bjergsen had to start for the academy team because Harry "Haeri" Kang couldn't make it to Los Angeles in time.
They're still one of the stronger-looking teams in Lock In thus far alongside Evil Geniuses even with limited practice time. It's a credit to TL's coaching staff and the players themselves that the team has looked as cohesive as it has on the Rift.
**2. Bradley's top lane debut (and the Core-sama duo)**
I first saw Bradley "Bradley" Benneyworth in the 2021 [Collegiate LoL Championship][1] as the starting mid laner for Minnesota's Bethany Lutheran College. He was then known as an exciting prospect who should never be allowed to play the recently-released Gwen, because he would take over entire games on it. Last year in both Proving Grounds and Scouting Grounds, Bradley was a rising star mid laner.
This past weekend, he made his LCS debut in Lock In as Team Liquid's top laner so that Hans sama and CoreJJ, TL's intended bot lane, could start together. He went 7/0/2 on Akali. It was the kind of individual standout performance I love to see from a tournament like Lock In, and one of the reasons that people should be tuning in.
As for the Hans sama and CoreJJ lane (Core-sama? HansJJ?) they contested and traded aggressively for level 2 and Team Liquid turned that immediately into an early kill for Hans sama off the back of a Santorin jungle invade. We can only hope that CoreJJ's green card issues are sorted as quickly as possible.
**3. A River runs through it (it being 100 Thieves)**
Speaking of reasons to watch Lock In, sometimes you end up not only with dazzling individual performances but stunning upsets, like Dignitas' 2-0 series win over reigning LCS Champions 100 Thieves.
More on the Thieves later.
Former PSG Talon jungler Kim "River" Dong-woo was known for playing around the strong pushing lanes of his team in the PCS. At 2021 MSI and later, the 2021 League of Legends World Championship, he impressed on focused meta picks like Rumble and Talon. I've seen a few people call his pathing suspect in the 100 Thieves-Dignitas series despite Dignitas' wins, and my gentle pushback would be that perhaps it was inefficient at times, but certainly purposeful. River knew exactly where he wanted to be in relation to his lanes, and continued to set up plays with Jarvan IV that the rest of his team could follow up on.
And this is with very little practice. Dignitas, a roster that many put at the bottom of their LCS preseason rankings, are suddenly looking a lot more interesting and it's not only River who looked outstanding at times, but bot laner Toàn "Neo" Trần who took over teamfights on both Ezreal and Aphelios. Additional congratulations to top laner Aaron "Fakegod" Lee, who quietly had two good games on Gragas and Renekton to win his first-ever best-of series in his career.
**4. Blue Saturday**
I said in this year's first [10 Thoughts piece][2] that Dignitas mid laner Ersin "Blue" Gören was in a tough spot due to no fault of his own. Preemptively denigrated by the community, Blue was called a nepotism hire at best, and the root of all that was wrong with the LCS at worst before he played a single game in North America.
The reality is that Blue is a mid laner who is coming to the LCS and Dignitas after a poor performance on SK Gaming partially due to chronic health issues.
Blue ended his first week in the LCS with a Zoe baron steal while playing with one of his fingernails torn off in a freak pre-game warmup accident.
This past Saturday, while River and Neo stole the show, Blue had two strong mid lane performances, including a 7/0/6 Zoe outing in their second game against 100 Thieves. Congratulations to Blue and Dignitas, and all the best moving forward into the 2022 season.
**5. LCK in the LCS**
A prevailing community comment is that LCS is now like a mini League of Legends World Championship with TSM bringing over players from China's LoL Pro League and LoL Development League, Team Liquid having an almost entirely European lineup, and of course, Cloud9 bringing over talented South Korean players in Park "Summit" Woo-tae, Kim "Berserker" Min-cheol, and Kim "Winsome" Dong-keon.
While this part of the lineup is still in South Korea scrimming as much as possible, there have been a few interesting picks heavily-favored by LCK teams that have worked their way into C9 drafts.
I posit that the LCS is at its healthiest when it has a variety of different yet cohesive playstyles from team to team. It's been interesting seeing some popular LCK picks (that I personally think are strong or interesting) like Poppy, a higher Jhin priority, or even the Varus pick (although I'm more doubtful on the latter thus far) be test-driven by C9 thus far in this tournament. I'm particularly curious to see what they'll pull out against Evil Geniuses this weekend, given that EG has looked like the strongest team here by a significant margin.
**6. Danny's sophomore start**
Both here and on broadcast, I've talked a lot about how much I love watching Evil Geniuses play. They do not seem bound by specific champion picks despite a strong meta read, have showed a variety of different looks where any one player can carry, and jungler Kacper "Inspired" Słoma already picked up the first Player of the Week award for 2022. The team puts their two youngest carries, Kyle "Danny" Sakamaki and rookie mid laner Joseph "jojopyun" Joon Pyun in excellent positions to succeed.
For this week, I want to focus on Danny a bit and how his laning already looks much better than last year, likely thanks to more experience and his new bot lane partner, support Phillippe "Vulcan" Laflamme. If he and Vulcan can contest their 2v2 lane early, it only means good things for an AD carry who already had phenomenal teamfighting prowess. Also congratulations to Danny for his first career pentakill this past weekend (although we all know he would have had that one on Tristana last year save some unfortunate timing.)
**7. A fond farewell to: 100 Thieves**
The Thieves are certainly going to want this one back. Between unexpectedly sloppy play from mid laner Felix "Abbedagge" Braun to losing the push in the bottom lane two games in a row and looking lost because of it, 100 Thieves did not look good in their 0-2 loss to an upstart Dignitas team.
Most, myself included, said that this was 100 Thieves' tournament to lose, especially since they played their full LCS Championship-winning lineup in all games but one (a single-game loss to FlyQuest in the group stages).
All is not lost for 100 Thieves. They still have a stacked lineup. Their bottom lane in particular is still shaping up to be one of the strongest in the LCS — although they certainly will have competition on that front — and it's safe to say that Abbedagge and jungler Can "Closer" Çelik will rebound quickly. The meta is still well within 100 Thieves' favor, especially when so many bottom lanes are focused on volatile 2v2 trading post-Teleport changes. However, this is certainly not the way they wanted to start the season: out in the Quarterfinals of a preseason tournament where they should have at least been able to make the Semifinals.
**8. A fond farewell to: CLG**
Despite a rough — in particular, Game 3 — series loss to Cloud9, there are a lot of reasons to be excited to watch CLG this year, starting with their hyper-aggressive bottom lane of Fatih "Luger" Güven and Philippe "Poome" Lavoie-Giguere. I love watching these two contest and trade in their 2v2 lane. If they see an opening, they will go for it and, more than likely, come out ahead.
In a broadcast interview, CLG mid laner Cristian "Palafox" Palafox said that the thing all CLG players have in common is a belief in their mechanics. You can see it in CLG's successes that they had in this tournament and when they faltered. All of these players want to make plays and believe in themselves and their ability to create openings, whether ahead or behind.
When they did get ahead like in Game 2 against Cloud9 or their last group stage win against Dignitas, CLG showed a fairly good understanding of how their composition should be piloted to net a victory. From a deficit, the members of CLG looked a lot more out-of-sync and as if they felt forced to make individual plays, frequently ill-timed with what the rest of the team was doing. These are solvable issues if the team can communicate well, and I hope they can because the few glimpses of smart play from CLG were exciting to watch.
**9. A fond farewell to: FlyQuest**
The most impressive thing about FlyQuest thus far was their ability to so quickly turn around from two completely disorganized games on Day 1 when they lost to TSM's Academy lineup and Cloud9, to two victories on Day 2, including an upset win over 100 Thieves.
Last year, FlyQuest was plagued with similar coordination issues, where players might have individually-strong performances or a good initial engage, but the rest of the team wouldn't be there to follow up. This was apparent in their first two games this year, but was significantly improved in their final two games of the group stage and even in their 0-2 series loss to Team Liquid. When at their best, this team could have some strong laners for jungler Brandon Joel "Josedeodo" Villegas to play around, and it will come down to whether they'll be able to coordinate around neutral objectives for teamfights that will decide the team's fate.
**10. A fond farewell to: Golden Guardians (Academy)**
I owe Jonathan "Chime" Pomponio an apology for consistently wanting him to play Bard. Apparently he wasn't a Bard one-trick but a Thresh one-trick initially (according to sources). Although, according to another source (one Barento "Raz" Mohammed, one of my analyst desk compatriots) Chime can carry the heck out of a game on Bard regardless, and it is his namesake.
Nonetheless, we did not see Bard from Chime and Quarterfinals were a pretty rough time overall for Golden Guardians' Academy lineup, having to face Evil Geniuses. That being said, I enjoyed some of the things Golden Guardians brought out, especially the Vladimir in Game 1, and the idea behind their composition in Game 2. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough.
[1]: https://twitter.com/leagueofemily/status/1485101948084785154
[2]: https://lolesports.com/article/10-thoughts-before-lcs-lock-in/blte0791262d4c6195f
