Though many of the anticipated teams claimed their victories early in this massive day of League of Legends, upsets were in pursuit in the later half with Curse finally dropping a game and MRN showing dominance over Team Solomid and Counter Logic Gaming.
Losing to Vulcun last week apparently made CLG bloodthirsty and they spared no inch of mercy in the revenge match today. By using a heavy engage composition with Malphite, Jarvan and Alistar and feeding all kills to Vayne, CLG simply snowballed into victory.
In the second game of the day, Voyboy came to entertain, bringing in the fan-service of AP Tryndamere. What would otherwise be considered an unorthodox pick, Tryndamere fit perfectly in the “dive-for-the-carries” duo with SV’s Xin Zhao. By the end of the game, Voyboy’s Tryndamere was pocketing a 100% creep score advantage and a KDA of 4/0/4 – more than enough to wreck whatever MRN threw at him.
The pace quickened even more with TSM against Complexity. The teams traded a tower for tower until four of those were down by the sixth minute mark, essentially putting an end to the laning phase in a very early stage of the game.
Despite the big gap in renown, the match went on very equally in terms of skills and gold until Reginald’s Xerath went out of control. Protected by the meaty, crowd-controlling wall of Taric, Jarvan and Malphite, both Xerath and MF stayed safe for long enough to triumph in every team fight.
The tower wars continued in game four as CLG faced GGU for the second time in the LCS. CLG chose a high hp, high CC composition with the sole purpose of guarding Vayne while pushing towers and that worked wonders for them, at least in the first few minutes.
Some bad positioning and team fights gone wrong allowed GGU to get back into the game and chew through the gold and kill gap and be on the verge of a comeback. And then, a baron fight happened, one that saw everything going wrong for GGU. Four for one was the exchange and CLG knew well at that time that the game was theirs – Vayne was still alive behind the wall of tanks.
None of the games thus far came close to the one-sidedness that Curse vs Complexity offered. Eager to secure Thresh and Jarvan, Complexity let champions like Xin Zhao and Twisted fate make the cut and Curse honestly could not have wished for a better composition. Playing the champions they’re most accustomed to, the roster under Saint’s command brought all hell upon Complexity. They found them under towers, in their jungle or simply out of position, giving no room to breathe and closing the game by the 24th minute mark, banking a 20-kill lead.
Team Solomid vs. Good Game University paced much slower than the other games that have been played prior to this. Though Good Game University never took a steady lead, there were outplays from both sides and the competition was relatively even.
In the midgame, Good Game Unversity gets clever and hides in scarcely warded bushes, ambushing TSM and finding little advantages here and there. Unfortunately for them, TSM was able to acquire more barons and apply pressure on the map for any lane where Tryndamere did not partake in. Rumble also managed to 1v1 AP Tryndamere and deflect any split-pushing potential.
Ultimately in the end, GGU became greedy, pressing their split pushing power a bit too much when their base was in dire need of help. With DontMashMe caught out and gibbed instantly, a stop was put to the 4 man defense for GGU and TSM just abused and rolled over the 3 players at the base, destroying the Nexus and taking the game before the blink of an eye.
Dignitas vs. Vulcun kicks off with Qtpie finally being banned out from his current trademark champion and playing a more standard carry. Dig's usual bottom lane heads to middle in attempt to shut down Ryze early, while KiWiKiD on Singed attempts to hold an early 3v1, dying in the process. Vulcun also ends up at the receiving end of a 2v1 gank bottom, but Sycho Sid mans up and manages a 1 for 1 trade.
After snowballing an early advantage in midgame, Crumbzz gets unstoppably fed on Vi, making him the richest member on his team with the addition of 5 turrets worth of global gold. Vulcun falls very far behind, but still hangs in there and manages to take a dragon. Though Dignitas has more gold, Vulcun pulls some impressive wins away from Dignitas. Though Dignitas remains ahead 25 minutes into the game, situations go wrong with a baron bait, where KiwiKiD dies to baron after tanking it for too long and soaking damage from baron as well as mandatorycloud on Ryze.
The dawn of HotshotNidaleeGG returns for the first time for what seems like over a decade. While he fell behind early on in the fight against Renekton top, he did his usual split pushing job of being annoying. Meanwhile bottom, Doublelift on his trademarked Vayne had the pleasure of laning against a 2-0 Kog'Maw due to a gank gone wrong bottom.
MRN, as a very momentum based team, capitalized on their early lead and were suddenly pulling ahead of the team which they had never defeated in a scrim. Though they consistently stay many dragons and thousands of gold ahead, Counter Logic Gaming's stalling holds themselves together and even puts MRN in the face of fear. Though MRN thought they were behind, they captured a baron and murdered Doublelift, which would keep them ahead for the rest of the game.
After a long and hard fought battle, an upset commences as MRN rips the game away from CLG and marches to victory.
The next match makes for one of the biggest rivalries in E-Sports and the content of the game surely delivered. Dignitas was hunting for the blood of the slain king and were capable of doing just that. Though Curse started out the game with a first blood, Dignitas quickly found themselves winning every lane individually, and most staggeringly, KiWiKiD was crushing Voyboy top, who he had extreme respect for.
Curse, for the first time, found themselves playing from being desperately trying to grasp at any advantage they could find. Too comfortable riding the victory train, they ended up in a bit of a pickle as Dignitas would win out many fights and apply appropriate pressure to the map, showing just how coordinated of a team they really are.
After an intense attempt at a desperate comeback, Curse found strings hard to hold onto once Dignitas pulled off a brave Baron and sealed the deal. Curse would find their first loss of the tournament to the second place standings in the team who currently is tied with them in points.
Two of the underdog teams followed up featuring Vulcun vs. Complexity. The game was off to a rough start for Complexity as Lautemortis invaded blue but missed his smite, causing Xmithie to grab it with a mere auto attack. The carnage continues as Chuuper dies to a gank by Twisted Fate and Xsmithie, red buff assisting greatly in bringing Chuuper to his death.
The morale slowly becomes destroyed in Complexity's souls and they continue to get caught out. Despite the deficit, Complexity does make some aggressive plays and even goes for a surefire baron...that is until it was stolen away by Vulcun, rendering them almost completely hopeless. This pretty much seals the deal for Vulcun as they gladly take this advantage and run it to the Nexus.
In a goal to continue their astonishing win streak, Dignitas faces off against Good Game University. Imaqtpie gives himself a nice little lead by stealing the large mini golem. In a fight where both junglers would cross swords, NintendudeX grabs himself a first blood, but still dies and exchanges a kill for this advantage.
Though the game was trucking along evenly for the earliest portion of the game, a 4v4 bottom warrants a 2-0 exchange in favor of Dignitas, which they then used to push their aggression to the max and find themselves up 8-2 by the 12 minute mark. Good Game Unversity then continues to fight terrified under towers with Dignitas in full control, extending Dignitas' win streak.
The final match to close the game out would crown MRN as upset kings for the day. Even with the constant lane swaps happening as of late, Megazero fulfills his wish to 1v1 Dyrus. Both teams play careful and narrowly avert mistakes early on in the game, but TSM manages to grab the first blood around 17 minutes in. Unfortunately, they lost 2 of their brethren to MRN a minute later.
While the midgame was rather stagnant, the gravest of mistakes would happen as MRN would rush for baron and TSM were overly eager to steal it away. The failure of doing so allowed MRN to come out with 3 kills and shove 2 towers, also deleting the inhibitor in the process. In another teamfight gone wrong, Heartbeat grabs a quadrakill, extending their lead to 2 inhibitors down. Reginald does fend him off with his explosive on Xerath, but it wasn't enough to hold off their imminent defeat as an ace would secure MRN yet another upset victory in today's LCS.
Current NA LCS Standings:
