(original photo courtesy of slaskiepozytywnie.pl)
Headed into the first match of the day, the hopes of many fans lied with Team SoloMid. With momentum and a growing synergy, TSM had the opportunity to defeat the Korean Challenger team ESC Ever. Coming off a championship at IEM Cologne and the KESPA Cup before that, Ever was eager to prove that they were no joke. The result is a rollercoaster match that did exactly that.
Recap
Match 1/1: ESC Ever (Blue) vs. Team SoloMid (Red)
Winner: ESC Ever
Game time: 36:55
BANS
| ESC Ever | Team SoloMid |
|---|---|
|
LeBlanc | Braum |
| Kog'Maw | Lulu |
| Kalista | Corki |
FINAL SCOREBOARD
| ESC Ever | ||
|---|---|---|
| Towers: 6 | Gold: 65.4k | Kills: 16 |
| Ares | Graves | 1-6-4 |
| Crazy | Nautilus | 3-6-8 |
| Key | Bard | 2-4-13 |
| Tempt | Twisted Fate | 3-4-12 |
| Loken | Lucian | 7-3-6 |
| Team SoloMid | ||
|---|---|---|
| Towers: 9 | Gold: 71.1k | Kills: 23 |
| Doublelift | Ezreal | 12-2-4 |
| YellowStar | Alistar | 1-5-9 |
| Hauntzer | Fiora | 6-2-11 |
| Svenskeren | Elise | 3-2-18 |
| Bjergsen | Lissandra | 1-5-16 |
(courtesy of ESL, flickr)
Analysis
This was a tough one to watch.
In the first match of the day, Team SoloMid did everything right. They started off with a level 1 kill on Jae-hee "Crazy" Kim in the jungle before they transitioned into a strong early and mid-game. By nine minutes, TSM was up by nine kills and 4k gold with the first dragon under their belt by 15 minutes. At 29 minutes, they wrapped up a brilliant counter-engage with a pentakill for Yiliang "Doublelift" Peng. This game was TSM's.
Where did it all fall apart?
After a lot of poor decisions.
Despite a composition focused on split-pushing, TSM was dedicated to team-fighting beneath ESC Ever's towers. At best, this earned TSM one kill and usually some deaths of their own. A panicked counter-engage in the bottom lane led to Ever cleaning up TSM. With each failed team-fight, Ever was able to crawl closer to victory.
It all came together at the Baron pit around the 35 minute mark. Again, TSM was stubborn and pushed for an objective despite strong reasons not to. Ever contested TSM's Baron attempt multiple times, even with their inhibitor and nexus tower knocked down. Ultimately, TSM did not respect how much Ever had come back. After a great team-fight, Ever aced TSM and walked right down the mid lane, destroyed three towers, an inhibitor, the nexus towers and the nexus itself. It was a clean sweep that demonstrated that despite their Challenger League status, they are still a decisive team, and one to be feared.
