Photo credits go to: lolesports' flickr
Couldn’t catch the games this weekend? Well, don’t fret, butterfingers, GosuGamers has your back.
It finally happened. Writing an intro to this seems purposeless given this weekend’s happenings; I’d be doing you all a disservice if I didn’t just jump right in and say it:
Immortals made mortal
Yes, that’s right. After 6 weeks of contiguous victories, Immortals have been brought low. Their conquerors? Counter Logic Gaming, which is surprising in its own right. CLG have had their ups and downs this split; they have games where they look like an unstoppable, cohesive unit, and then other games where they completely fall apart early on and can’t do anything really. Their rematch against Immortals, however, CLG was undoubtedly the former. The game was a coalescence of everything they want in a game: Darshan “Darshan” Upadhyaha got to splitpush on Fiora, Jake “Xmithie” Puchero got to be an incredible nuisance on Udyr, and JaeHyeon “huhi” Choi got to make big plays on LeBlanc. Immortals’ draft was confident as usual: no real tanks aside from EuiJin “Reignover” Kim’s Gragas, and it relied very much on Adrian “Adrian” Ma’s Soraka to carry the day. Credit where credit is due: it nearly worked. Whilst SeungHun "Huni" Heo and Reignover struggled mightily, Jason “WildTurtle” Tran’s Lucian went wild, nearly dragging his team up from the depths for a victory. It was not meant to be, however, as Xmithie got a beautiful steal on the baron that allowed Darshan to push the nexus for an incredible victory, in a highlight-reel-worthy play that didn't involve any kills.
CLG rises
This was undoubtedly the hardest week CLG had all split. Not only were they up against Immortals, the undisputed best in NA, but also against an ascendant Cloud 9, who had just taken down Team SoloMid and had been looking particularly strong coming into week 7. In one of the most intense games of the split (since the CLG/IMT game the day before), CLG and C9 went absolutely nuts on each other. C9’s jungler, YunJae “Rush” Lee, played an artful Lee Sin that looked as though it would solo carry his team, but on the other side of the game, Darshan was doing what he does best: farming and splitpushing. In the end, CLG won out, but it’s certainly a game worth watching, if for the gorgeous Lee Sin play alone.
Echo Fox loses momentum
Facing facts, it was never going to be an easy week for Echo Fox. No matter how many games they won beforehand, TSM/IMT were going to be incredibly stiff competition. Indeed, the team as a whole, while good, aren’t quite up to snuff compared to the upper bracket teams. This week laid their weaknesses rather bare, as they were utterly dominated by both their opponents. They have a particular penchant for pushing up too far and getting caught with their pants down, and their jungler, Anthony “Hard” Barkhovtsev, has been having some problems measuring up to the other junglers in the league (particularly against Immortals’ Reignover). Over the coming weeks, they’ll need to practice hard, as their best hope now is to do well enough to gain and keep a spot in the top six. It won’t be an easy road, as they’re two games down from the 6th place teams, and their schedule isn’t getting any easier.
Team Liquid: A Solid Performance
This split has been an odd one for Team Liquid. After some roster upheaval the first week, they settled on three rookies (relative to the rest of the team): Sampson “Lourlo” Jackson in toplane, Matthew “Matt” Elento as support, and Joshua “Dardoch” Hartnett as jungler. People were worried that these newcomers represented a regression of talent, not a furthering thereof. This week, however, showed how wrong the naysayers were. Against both Team Impulse and TSM, they utterly stomped out their opponents. Lourlo outplayed both jungle ganks and 1v2s, and Dardoch played an utterly incredible Lee Sin against TSM. Yet again the game is worth watching simply to see his performance (though if you’re a TSM fan it may be a bit hard to swallow). With an impressive and unprecedented 2-0 week, Liquid may have slid themselves into a playoff spot, with an ample cushion of two games separating them from the bottom four.
Standings
Immortals, despite the loss, still sits comfortably in their throne, three games separating them from the rabble in the rest of the bracket. CLG has eked out a second place spot for themselves with this week, putting them above C9, in third, and TSM, in fourth. NRG eSports and Liquid tie at fifth, whilst the formerly ascendant Echo Fox languish in seventh, tied with TIP. close to relegation. Team Dignitas, despite their surprise victory over TSM last week, still can’t find their way out of the bottom four due to a disappointing 0-2 week 7. Finally, Renegades still anchor the league despite a win over Dignitas this week.
Next week, the LCS is off for IEM Katowice. If you’re in North America like me, it’s going to be hard to watch those games as they’re generally pretty early in the morning. However, as usual, GosuGamers will always have your back, as we’ll be doing comprehensive coverage of the whole event, so you don’t have to wake up at the crack of dawn each day to watch. The tournament begins on March 4th, so stay tuned for that!
