C9 stays up, while a 4-way war for third starts

 

 

 

Week 5 Day 2 of the NA LCS started with Curse Gaming facing off against old rivals Counter Logic Gaming. The game started rather explosively as CLG chose to pick Pantheon in the jungle. While an early game gank is where Pantheon poses a serious threat, CLG was not able to make anything happen before everyone had reached level 6. Once the ultimate came around, Jiji shifted gears to complete kill mode. With the composition CLG was going for, the split push double global ultimate was a very frightening possiblity for Curse. Everything Curse attempted was countered beautifully by CLG. At 28 minutes into the game CLG went for Baron, however Crs sniffed it out and forced the 3 members of CLG to flash out of the Baron pit leaving a half-health Baron for the taking. CLG, however, had other plans as they utilized Crs to do damage to Baron, while Chauster and Jiji perform a perfect air Thresh smite steal.

 

With the game totally in CLG's favor Curse had no choice but to play on the defensive end. Even with Baron buff, Curse held on bravely and lived to fight again. With the game still up in the air, CLG continued their split push strategy and paid for it heavily. At 35 minutes in, Curse managed to start a fight that was completely in their favor as they managed to get 3 kills for none along with Baron. Even after the Baron was taken, CLG continued to use their solo laners to split push. Curse took advantage of this and pushed into CLG's base before everyone could come help defend, giving Curse a dominant comeback victory.

 

 

 

After an exciting game 1, Dignitas went up against Coast during the second game of the night. Dignitas and Coast played rather aggressively since the opening; however, even with aggressive playstyles neither team came up with kills. Coast came up with an early advantage as NintendudeX managed to pull off some great ganks early on. However, Dignitas, being the veterans that they are, stayed calm and waited for the perfect fight. 10 minutes into the game, Coast thought they would get a Dragon and pick up some kills; unfortunately for them Dignitas completely demolished them in the fight and got the Dragon instead. From that point on Dignitas continued to climb and fight. The 32 minute long game was a sealed deal for Dignitas as they came out on top. With this win for Dignitas and the loss from CLG, 4 teams at this point hold a 7-7 record for third place.

 

 

 

 

C9 and Velocity are both new teams to the LCS, however their standings are polar opposites of each other. C9, the obvious favorites, played dominantly, starting the game with a 5-1 lead at 11 minutes in. This was a hard game for VES as they were dominantly crushed at every oppurtunity. While VES tried hard to get back in the game, it would have had to be a miracle as it is near impossible to stop a freight train. At 33 minutes, when the game ended, C9 held a dominant 19k gold lead, 10-0 towers, and 17-5 kills making this one of the most dominant stomps in this LCS.