This morning, as the masses awoke in slumbering style after three days of getting to grips with the pre-season 4 match, the league community was snapped back to eSports reality with the Intel Extreme Masters Cologne event getting their reported groove on. With an Amateur tournament that could rival half of the Professional tournament, we're set for exciting and mostly unprecedented results. Given the amount of changes to line-ups in the post-LCS era, we're not quite sure what to expect from the various match-ups.
Both teams started with a line-up that has not been tested intensively at offline tournaments, but it needed to be said that Ninjas in Pyjamas were walking into this first game of the Amateur tournament as the favourite. Why, you ask? Well, simply based on the experienced gathered by all five players in the LCS throughout the Season 3 compared to TCM-Gaming's run in the background of European's League competitions. However, the Ninjas in Pyjamas team were yet to be tested in major competition and have only recently joined together to prepare for the Season 4 LCS, whereas TCM-Gaming have been an active part of several online competitions and showed good form versus SK Gaming last weekend in online matches and seem to be running on positive fuel.
VS 
In game 1, it was Ninjas in Pyjamas who seemed to have gotten the picks they wanted and were looking to keep their range until Nidalee would land a spear, Nunu get a good ult off or even Lissandra catch someone out of place. Ninjas' poke seemed to be far greater than TCM-Gaming's and that proved correct in the opening minutes of the match.
First Blood was quickly gained over at Blue's Top side turret with BelgianBeast almost taking out Freeze's Caitlyn but could not occupy them long enough, as his flash had already been used up at that point after Caitlyn and Annie managed to lock him down halfway the lane and almost secured him there and then. He escaped but as soon as he returned, hyrqBot's Nunu had joined the party and would capitalize on the Top lane pressure with a kill and a turret. The pace of the early game was fast, as by the 5:00 mark, two turrets had fallen following active engages in all three lanes. First dragon followed suit and it seemed hyrqBot seemed a lot more active in the game than Naruterador's Volibear.
Some missed plays and bad guesses on TCM-Gaming's part, combined with Nidalee's spear landing on multiple occasions thoroughly pulled the map control towards the Purple side and this created all lanes pushing. At this point, the Lemondogs spirit within Ninjas in Pyjamas made them control the game with focus but also with tremenduous care, not allowing major mistakes. This prolonged the game more than it should probably have been, had the new team increased some of the riskier plays when sieging on the inner turrets. Eventually, this allowed TCM-Gaming to counter some plays and even pick up their morale, thinking not all was lost. In the end, though, it was the Baron positional play that gave Ninjas in Pyjamas that final bit of sustain needed to create plays inside of the Blue base and pick up their first inhibitors. Again, no huge risks were taken and the game only came to a big halt when 10 minutes later and another Baron pick-up they finally chose to engage and capitalize on the extreme 15K accumulated gold lead.
Short summary: Ninjas in Pyjamas had a great early game that gave them the lead, but their execution in the late game was lackluster and almost gave the Spanish-Belgian opponent an opening to claw back map control and create an unlikely comeback.
The first game did not give anyone a huge edge. Sure, Ninjas in Pyjamas won and were up one game in a Best-of-Three, TCM-Gaming could still spot mistakes in their opponent's game and some short reflection in the break could swing the favour in game 2. Ninjas in Pyjamas had a surprise to pull out of their rabbit-filled hat by letting BelgianBeast try his hand at Nidalee and countering it with a rarely seen Sion. Couple the Sion with Lucian and Jax and it seemed like the early game would go their way again, paving the way for the slow, dominant, controled style to eventually close out the match.
A great flash into leap strike counter strike stun on Jwaow's Kha'Zix confirmed that suspicion and with Sion roaming around a lot, the gold lead was increased through the 10 minute dragon pick-up. Turrets followed suit and it seemed like the pressure would result in lots of map control. However, the pace slowed down in the mid game and this gave TCM the time and space to intervene and especially Volibear tried to run more plays and slow down the push from the Blue side. A great opening by mithy's Annie stunned four of TCM, yet the rest of his team were not quite prepared and did not jump in with Annie. In the retreat afterwards, they did manage to pick up three kills and this shocked the game into action once more, with dragon and turrets falling in the aftermath.
By minute 27:00, it seemed like the Ninjas in Pyjamas managers were almost guaranteed a spot in the Amateur Grand Final. That was until Sion and Jax were caught off in the entirely wrong position, resulting in a 0:3 trade and the first Baron for TCM. Being backed up by the sustain of the purple buff, the game was turned on its head with three turrets in under five minutes to even the playing field entirely (47K gold vs 47K gold). Another team fight at the 37:00 mark ended up with a 4:2 trade and the Baron going over to Ninjas in Pyjamas this time. Once more, it was both Sion and Jax who got caught out at Top lane giving over the first Inhibitor, even though there shouldn't have been as much a need to double split thanks to the buffs they were running on.
When BelgienBeast's spear punishes mithy some five minutes later, this opened up the map for a quick and efficient Baron play that then snowballed into a kill and map advantage, quite unexpectedly. A final fight around the Blue Nexus turrets was not much of a fight after all, as Ninjas in Pyjamas made some crucial missplays in the mid game that twice gave away the lead and eventually the game.
Short summary: Ninjas in Pyjamas once more took firm control of the game in the early game due to strong laning but this time around made huge positional mistakes that gave away their map control not once but twice. TCM Gaming capitalized effectively and stormed the Blue base without hesitation to secure the game in just under 50 minutes.
In both previous games, the Purple side won, although it's fair to say that Ninjas in Pyjamas made all the plays in both games (dominant control in game 1 and bad positional play in game 2) and TCM-Gaming were mostly reacting to what was happening rather than initiating plays themselves. In game 3, they would have an opportunity to fix their laning phase and head into mid game on equal footing, if they'd not make any mistakes.
That's however where it all went wrong. Naruterador died at the own Purple side Blue buff and would not be able to get any major ganks off, due to missing his buff timers. Not helping either was the badly timed gank from BelgianBeast's Lissandra who teleported to bottom lane with both Annie and Lucian going low, yet died inexplicably. TCM goofed up that gank entirely. hyrqBot and Zorozero were using their mobile champs by invading the opposite jungle often, resulting in a Red buff steal and some in between turret laning at top.
The gold lead kept on increasing and after 15 minutes, the scoreboard read: 3-1 in kills, 1-0 in turrets and 1-0 in dragons and a 3,5K lead for Ninjas in Pyjamas. As long as the mid game drop-off would be avoided, this lead would increase and increase further. 10 minutes later and unfortunately for TCM-Gaming, no mistakes were to be noted and the lead had gone from 3,5K to 10K and Niinjas in Pyjamas were firmly pushing their advantage and controling all lanes. A team fight gone awry at the Baron resulted in a 1:5 trade, gifting over the middle turret and inhibitor and nothing seemed to stop the inevitable outcome of this match. A fight at top ended the game and finally a map was shown where Ninjas in Pyjamas played out the game the way they were supposed to after an early lead built up.
short summary: TCM-Gaming's Jungler gets caught out and the level 1 advantage snowballed into a huge lead over time for the Ninjas in Pyjamas. Especially through their much more mobile composition (Shyvana / Lee Sin / Gragas with great roaming), they did not slack off in the mid game and could dominate the team fights effectively, resulting in a hardfought Best-of-Three victory.
