(original photo courtesy of slaskiepozytywnie.pl)
Two of the West's heavyweights look like shades of their former selves. Team SoloMid and Origen are no strangers to each other, having faced off against each other three times on the international stage including this year's IEM Katowice. Until now, TSM had yet to beat Origen, struggling mightily against them at Worlds 2015 and at IEM San Jose. Though both teams have regressed significantly, they put on a spectacular show in Katowice on Friday.
Game 1:
Team SoloMid:
Nautilus, Lee Sin, Leblanc, Ezreal, Janna
Origen:
Poppy, Nidalee, Lissandra, Lucian, Thresh
From champion select, this game promised the fireworks you expect from an international tournament of champions. A bloodbath of a fight opened out the game at 11 minutes in. Alfonso "Mithy" Rodriguez opened up the affair for Origen with a pick onto Bora "Yellowstar" Kim for first blood. The ensuing collapse by TSM resulted in an even 4-4 trade, though Søren "Bjergsen" Bjerg walked away from the scrum with a 2/0/2 score. He would snowball this advantage with impeccable Leblanc play throughout the game, consistently chunking out Origen players and setting up favorable teamfights.
His play allowed TSM the slight advantages they needed to pull out a close victory over Origen, who stuck roughly close to TSM in gold and towers for the majority of the contest. They always seemed to take one more step towards victory than Origen in this contest, allowing them to take a 1-0 advantage in the series.
Game 2:
Team SoloMid:
Fiora, Lee Sin, Corki, Lucian, Braum
Origen:
Trundle, Elise, Twisted Fate, Kalista, Thresh
Yellowstar once again found himself caught out of position and surrendered first blood to Maurice "Amazing" Stückenschneider after yet another beautiful Death Sentence by Mithy's Thresh. This game had a quite similar flavor as game one, though Origen was the team finding a leg up slowly but surely in each fight. Though they found themselves at a gold deficit, greedy pushes by the NA mainstays resulted in uneven trades in kills that snowballed the game in favor of Origen. Most notable is TSM's failed push into Origen's base at the 35 minute mark.
The same lack of synergy that has plagued them since the beginning was their undoing during this unfortunate push, before which they had built up the necessary momentum to secure a 0-2 win. Origen sneaks this one off of them to force a decisive game three.
Game 3:
Team SoloMid:
Fiora, Lee Sin, Twisted Fate, Ezreal, Alistar
Origen:
Trundle, Elise, Talon, Lucian, Braum
This one was the headscratcher of the tournament so far.
With excellent mid lane champions like Viktor or Orianna still available, Origen opted to put Tristan "PowerofEvil" Schrage onto the fringe Talon pick. With a very one-dimensional win condition (pick and split push to an elimination game victory), Origen did set themselves up for success, funneling a solid amount of gold onto PoE and winning some back and forth engages.
Team SoloMid's most blatant crux, however, became the sole reason they escaped this series with a win. They were able to sneak a baron and create picks and map pressure before trading some kills back and forth, allowing Origen a narrow window to return fire and grasp the series victory.
As one lives by the Talon, though, one certainly dies by the Talon.
A botched push defense by Origen coupled with a tremendously overzealous, greedy 1v5 pick attempt by PowerofEvil led to the demise of Origen's international hopes. Team SoloMid stomped their way into the base, onto the nexus, and into the second round for a second date with Korean Cinderellas ESC Ever.
