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Events & Standings
6 thoughts going into LCS Playoffs Week 3
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One final LCS spot at the 2021 League of Legends World Championship remains.
Let's get it.
**1. 100 Thieves (qualified for the 2021 World Championship)**
In the weeks between the regular season and their first playoff match, 100 Thieves used their time wisely. They prepared specifically for Evil Geniuses and attacked them with a strong drafting strategy that focused on dismantling Jiizuke's overwhelming mid lane pressure and, by extension, his ability to use that pressure to help his jungler or EG's side lanes. You can (and probably should) argue that EG should have changed up their drafting strategy sooner, but that shouldn't take away from giving credit where credit is due. 100 Thieves came in with a clear-cut strategy and executed on it well. One of the only reasons this series went to five games is due to Danny's Game 4 Tristana outplay.
When they were at their peak this past split, 100 Thieves were an early-game team. Led by the one-two punch of Closer and Abbedagge, their issue wasn't in getting leads but keeping them. All too often we would see 100 Thieves waffle around mid game objectives and this wasn't an exception this weekend, where EG were able to get the better of cross-map trades at times.
Unlike Team Liquid, who have been playing their best League of Legends all year in the past few weeks, 100 Thieves still don't quite have the confidence of the LCS community behind them as a potential LCS champion (and by extension, a Worlds representative). Although I'm a lot more convinced by 100 Thieves this past weekend — and they have the talent and flexibility on this team to develop into something great — they'll have to evolve again before their match against Team Liquid this weekend in order to beat them.
**2. Team Liquid (qualified for the 2021 World Championship)**
The most impressive part of Team Liquid's victory over TSM was that it offered yet another look at what this TL team can do and how they can pivot to counter their opponents. Last week, we saw TL pull out the Ziggs bot against C9 along with an early mid/jungle focus with Santorin's Sejuani and Jensen's Lee Sin. This week we saw them swap to Santorin on the Trundle — something we already knew from last week that he was playing as a Xin Zhao counterpick — and Xin Zhao in their series against TSM all while showing off a double AD poke composition, bringing back the bard, and a Camille/Galio look in various games throughout the series.
Santorin's return is the key behind all of this. It's a credit to the Team Liquid team staff and organization that they've been able to get him the help he needed to mitigate his migraine symptoms enough to return to the LCS (and now Worlds) stage. What could have been a career-ending illness is now a part of potentially one of the greatest (and oddly quietest) comebacks in LCS history given how well Team Liquid are playing behind Santorin's early pressure. His ability to track his opponents early has been aided by strong communication with CoreJJ, who is now out of lane far more than he's at Tactical's side. Their synergy with each other and Team Liquid's lanes in their past two series has made Team Liquid the strongest team in the LCS right now.
**3. Evil Geniuses**
The best plays are automatically set up by circumstance. Evil Geniuses, a fairly heavy favorite to win their match against 100 Thieves and qualify for the League of Legends World Championship, were moments away from being beaten 3-1 and knocked down to the lower bracket. Then EG bot laner Danny saves the game on one of his signature champions, Tristana, with a dazzling display of raw mechanical skill. This teamfight, and Danny's individual Tristana prowess, sends EG to a Game 5.
As broadcasters, we see everything first, slightly ahead of the short delay it takes to relay everything to a variety of streams. Seconds after screaming in the studio at the play and tweeting, "HOLY SHIT DANNY," I saw social media blow up with people's reactions to the play. 100 Thieves Call of Duty pros and COD fans or ex-pros who had tuned in to watch the match, presumably to support 100 Thieves, were tweeting things like "This Danny kid is cracked." The Danny play made not only LCS fans stand up and recognize his skill, but fans who don't even regularly watch League of Legends to sit in awe of his mechanical prowess. Even people who are fans and journalists from other regions who have done nothing but use the LCS as their punching bag all year had to give Danny credit.
The only thing that would have made the Danny play better would have been if Evil Geniuses had managed to win the series.
There's a larger discussion to be had regarding why LCS pros often struggle to believe in their own mechanical skill (something I've heard from multiple coaches and team scouts) that ties into the multi-faceted conversation about the LCS ecosystem and North American League of Legends generally. Danny never stopped believing in his own two hands, and it's a combination of his EG teammates and staff and Danny himself that deserve credit for this. When I talked to Danny before he ever set foot on the LCS stage, he promised that he wouldn't lose the teamfight aggression I had seen from him in the amateur scene while on EG Prodigies. He's delivered on that prowess multiple times this split, culminating in the Tristana play we saw this past weekend.
Of all teams in the upper bracket going into this past weekend, Evil Geniuses were the team that most expected to make it through. Thanks to strong preparation — drafting and Closer and Abbedagge targeting Contractz and Jiizuke specifically — 100 Thieves managed to best EG despite the Danny play. With less than a week to prepare, EG will have a tough task ahead of them in besting Cloud9, but if this split has been any indication, they should be able to bounce back nicely.
**4. TSM**
This week, TSM are in a similar situation as Cloud9 was going into their match against Golden Guardians: beaten fairly soundly by Team Liquid with the entire community heavily doubting them outside of the most resolute TSM fans. They face an Immortals team that likely has a few tricks up their sleeve to push TSM out of their comfort zone, especially on the bot side of the map where TSM have visibly struggled.
That being said, TSM prepared a red-side counterpick strategy against Team Liquid that did not work in their favor. This was due more to execution errors than drafting in most cases (although no one will jump to defend the Game 4 draft). It feels particularly bad as a jungler to have to interrupt your clear to reset top lane at levels 1-2, and situations like this allowed Santorin to get the best of Spica, who has been the key component of any early proactivity that TSM has had all split. It's no coincidence that TSM looked their best on blue side where they could have a comfortable standard look and not rely on snowballing specific counterpicks.
TSM should still be the favorites against Immortals, simply because they do make fewer mistakes, and if they stick to something that works for them and is comfortable, they know how to execute on it fairly well. In a best-of-five, if TSM focus on themselves rather than whatever Immortals will throw at them, they should come out ahead.
**5. Cloud9**
Despite their performance against Team Liquid in the first playoff round, Cloud9 redeemed themselves this past week with a quick 3-0 over Golden Guardians. Afterwards while Perkz joined us on the Analyst Desk, he was surprisingly down for someone who had just stomped a best-of-five series. Although he perked (no pun intended) up by the end of the interview, one takeaway was that Perkz, and by extension Cloud9, are more than well aware of what's at stake for them. If they fail to make Worlds with this roster, their disappointing MSI performance stands out even more, all against the backdrop of Perkz leaving G2 (where he was considered a franchise player) for North America and Cloud9.
The blueprint that 100 Thieves created for beating Evil Geniuses is something that C9 can definitely follow: shut down mid/jungle so that Jiizuke and either Contractz or Svenskeren can spread their pressure to EG's side lanes, particularly the top side of the map. When C9 were at their best in spring, it was through Blaber taking over the jungle, Perkz with strong mid lane priority, and that influence spreading to Fudge in the top lane as his opponents stacked waves and offered strong gank opportunities for C9.
To reiterate, this C9 roster is ridiculously talented on paper and is certainly capable of winning the LCS and going to Worlds. It's just a matter of execution at this point.
**6. Immortals**
I've made no secret that I've enjoyed watching Immortals this past year. They've often stuck to more complex drafts, despite a higher degree of difficulty, and have pulled out some interesting compositions that have obviously been prepared for specific circumstances. For Immortals, it's a lot about strong preparation and when they are able to execute on that in game, it's remarkably fun to watch.
This past weekend, they slammed Dignitas — partially because Dignitas' drafts were fairly awful and also because they have an odd amount of flexibility in certain positions, particularly Xerxe in the jungle and Insanity in the mid lane. Xerxe is known for having a few strong picks that he can bring into specific situations, even if that champion is technically off-meta. We saw his Zac return against Dignitas, something that you easily could have predicted he'd pull out eventually due to its rising priority in other regions, his own experience on it, and the fact that IMT Academy played it a few times already. Insanity is just known for his willingness to play anything.
Against TSM, they should have an interesting matchup. Immortals are far more willing to flex mages like Ziggs and Syndra into the bot lane all while throwing a variety of picks at opponents in their solo lanes and jungle. Beating TSM will require more consistent execution than Immortals have shown all year, but it's not something this team is incapable of, especially given how precisely they're able to prepare for certain opponents.
