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Coverage
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To kickstart the LPL, Royal Club would continue their rampant usage of "strange picks" which have been extremely comfortable for the team in the later half of the LPL summer season. It was just going to be another game where the duo including Tabe's Annie would snowball and be complimented by Lucky's Yorick jungle.
Royal Club would immediately get their strategy underway, starting with a dive on YanSir's Orianna in the mid lane that would get the snowball rolling for Uzi's Twitch. Annie's complimentary CC meant that Uzi was able to close out several kills while Lucky would surely be able to clone Twitch, making for devestating early teamfights.
At around 7 minutes, Royal Club were up 5-0 with mid tower down for Young Glory and had also acquired a dragon. Royal Club was absolutely relentless in their assaults on Young Glory's towers and whoever was unlucky enough to have to defend them, diving oiutright. 13 minutes in, Uzi's Twitch was 6-0-2, having participated in every one of his team's kills.
Royal Club did not plan on throwing and had dealt considerable damage 15 minutes in, looking to make short work of the game. As it would stand, their utter dominance would allow them to close out the game and show just how inconsistent Young Glory can be after their redemption of last week.
The second game of the day was between two teams that had struggled for the majority of the season but have shown improvement in the last few weeks -- especially LMQ. The popularity between the picks of Vayne and Twitch were left unchanged as both were locked in once again for the showdown between these two teams.
Early on during laning phase, it was apparent that NoName had been stepping his jungle game up by grabbing the first two kills bottom. However, Energy Pacemaker struck back with a dragon of their own as well as two kills. While LMQ's bot lane was doing well, EP's SuperCat was enjoying an easy laning time against Kassadin due to his Zed pick.
Comparative to last game, this game was relatively slow with kills, with only 9 being on the map around the 18 minute mark. 3 Blade of the Ruined Kings were completed on the map already, an item that has since been nerfed in the life patch. Energy Pacemaker would find a pretty hefty lead in the mid-game.
When late game rolled around, LMQ found great success in taking away baron, which took away the hopes of Energy Pacemaker grabbing a much needed win. With baron buff and the assassination potential along with the AoE composition wielded by LMQ, Energy Pacemaker would suffer defeat to LMQ.
OMG vs iG would kick off extremely action packed with 6 kills on the board in just 5 minutes. Invictus Gaming came out on top 4-2 in the early exchanges with an early snowball onto Twitch. The interesting thing to note was ZZ1tai and Kid's role swap, where Kid, traditionally the AD Carry, took the role of Zed in the mid lane while ZZ1Tai took AD Carry.
The flexibility of Invictus Gaming was shining through and their playstyle looked a lot cleaner than it had in recent weeks. The versatility between the AP Carry and AD Carry of Invictus Gaming continued to thrive with IG's bottom lane continuing to dominate. OMG would win the jungle control, however, and take the first dragon of the game.
Invictus Gaming continued to thrive off the success of the champion swap, applying tons of pain to OMG. OMG found success on some ends, but were not in the driver's seat for the game because although they were grabbing most of the dragons, Invictus Gaming had powerful split push and a 2 turret advantage 22 minutes in.
As the game dragged on, Invictus Gaming's superioer late-game strength with their team composition was proving superior to OMG's, especially with a fed Twitch and a farmed Jax. Both their team fighting potential as well as their split pushing potential was extremely strong. Eventually, iG would crush though OMG to give them one of their very few losses.
The final game of the night would be absolutely wacky due to the first Sion pick we've seen in competitive play in a very, very long time. This champion was played at the hands of Misaya, someone known for his mechanical Twisted Fate prowess. Meanwhile, Mann was commanding Volibear, and dived without any cares in the top lane at level 3 for a 2-1 trade.
Caomei continued to invest in sheer lane dominance, coming back to lane with 2 Doran's Blade as well as chugging an Elixir of Fortitude. Though World Elite accumulated a 3-1 kill advantage in the early game, Positive Energy was able to pick up the dragon. Meanwhile, Fzzf quickly became Feddlesticks and World Elite continued to look dominant.
This game marked one of Mann's best performances in recent weeks, being a part of all but 1 kill throughout the mid-game. While Misaya didn't do much in team fights except for soak damage, he was a split pushing terror that was able to counter Zed handily. Positive Energy was simply at a loss on how to stop World Elite's rampage and sieging of towers.
Twenty minutes in, World Elite established such a large lead that Misaya purchased a Mejai's Soulstealer on Sion. Not only were World Elite beefy, but they had poke and wave-clear. After one last fight, Positive Energy got completely crushed and the game was handed to World Elite.
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STANDINGS
