The past weekend, the LCS debuted in style following the rise of up-and-coming teams, a shaky preseason roster shuffle, and a return to the ye olde best-of-1 format.

From the classic upsets to textbook League of Legends, the NA and EU representatives have set their sights on every region’s year-end end game: Worlds. Missed it?

Don’t fret - we’ve handpicked cross continental highlights throughout the Rift to catch you up for the coming week’s matchups and narratives.

Photo: LoL Esports. https://www.flickr.com/photos/lolesports/

Splyce’s base race finish in 68-minute match vs UOL

What do you have when you have a Sivir and Azir on one side of the Rift? That’s right. An unending streak of cleared minion waves and towers left to be taken down -- and that’s exactly what went down in Splyce’s win against the Unicorns in the first day of the EU LCS.

UOL looked poised to take the game early-on, securing a substantial gold lead through taking advantage of SPY Odoamne’s immobile Illaoi. However, UOL couldn’t quite close the game as Splyce scaled up and got back on its tail to stall the game until they could strike the unicorns down.

It was a tense back-and-forth with back-to-back baron steals from Splyce and UOL.

At one point UOL had SPY held to its breaking point with all inhibitors broken until finally, all hell broke loose when SPY took the opportunity to run it down mid after a 2-0 trade around 67 minutes in.

It all came down to the milliseconds, and in the end, Splyce closed the game out with their unwavering dedication to the base race call.

Photo: LoL Esports. https://www.flickr.com/photos/lolesports/

Bay Life stumbles as TSM start 0-2

NA’s historic champions, Team SoloMid, look shaky off the bat as they fall back to their habits of old, playing too reactively throughout their matches. The spectacle recalls to the 2017 Worlds stage when above all the hype, TSM failed to make it out of the group stage because of their faulty early game.

Now, even with a revamped roster in rookie jungler, Mikeyeung, and previously-G2 bot lane, Zven and Mithy, TSM still struggles to find the success they had hoped for by signing the trio.

This is no cause for alarm however, as the community has foreseen that the championship team might take a while to gel together. Expect that in the coming weeks, TSM will be back on its feet readying for their next playoffs win.

After all, the team has been in every NA LCS playoffs Finals.

Photo: LoL Esports. https://www.flickr.com/photos/lolesports/

Huni returns - with his Lucian pocket pick.

After his stint on the world-famous SKT T1, Heo "Huni" Seung-hoon has come back to the motherland with a champion we obviously never expected: his trademark Lucian.

In his time with Fnatic and Immortals, Huni has traditionally pulled out The Purifier as a carry laner with little to no success. This time however, Huni has put Lucian back on the map as a lane bully counter-pick to the meta Gangplank -- and dominated with it. Through Huni’s stellar performance in the laning phase that easily spilled over to the rest of the map, Echo Fox rolled over FlyQuest to net them a favorable 1-0 start for the season.

Echo Fox continued its streak by taking down the Rockets-backed Clutch Gaming, proving that FOX Huni is a fearsome contender amongst the competition. Huni’s back and he’s returned with the intent to reign over NA, as he has in Europe and Korea.

Photo: LoL Esports. https://www.flickr.com/photos/lolesports/

Plays. Plays everywhere.

Of course, the LCS wouldn’t be the LCS without its crowd-roaring, game-changing highlights.

Zoe makes herself known in the competitive universe of LoL
Golden Guardian’s Hai showcases Zoe’s in-game potential as she Portal Jumps her way right into pro play.

Cloud9 Licorice’s sweet escape
C9 Licorice peaces out with a quick-n-out maneuver on Kled.

Giants Gaming Ruin’s 2 v 1 Outplay
GIA Ruin outplays a UOL gank attempt, as he goes golden under tower.

Why Zilean counters Malzahar
C9 Jensen solo-kills CLG Huhi under tower, 100-0.

With all said and done, what could possibly be in store for this week’s LCS action?

Watch the LCS splits unfold as teams clash in the highest-tier of gameplay this weekend on Youtube, Twitch, and LoL Esports.

Resources:

EU LCS Standings. NA LCS Standings.

NA LCS & EU LCS VODs.

Images courtesy of Riot Games.

LCS Rundown: Kickoff Week