Here's this week's 10 thoughts from @meanmisterkien!
Make sure to tune in this Friday at 3 pm PT as the NA LCS resumes action. And each week, check back to Lolesports for 10 more thoughts on the subsequent weeks.
Team Envyus
NV has the same problems as they did a year ago; they're decent early but when it comes to the mid/late game they just fall apart. It's becoming predictable for the enemy jungler to come to NV's botlane to pick up either 2 easy kills or just 1 from Hakuho who has poor map awareness mainly because of himself who doesn't ever ward as a support. It's annoying because Apollo who I believe is one of the most underrated players in NA and has been for some time now has to lane with a support that dies almost every game within the first 3 mins because of ganks that are predictable because of Hakuho's reputation of not warding.
Hakuho needs to improve for the ROLE that he is playing as not the other way around. He's #1 as far as dmg goes for supports which can be thanked for the meta around supports but is dead last in wards as a support!
Think of Hakuho as Jesse Ventura from Predator who does alot of damage with his machine gun but just can't see the Predator(enemy team) because of the lack of wards but with 1 hit/gank and he's down for the rest of the movie/game.
Immortals
Thinking how many times Pobelter will die total in Immortal's series this weekend as well as bloopers from Dardoch.
Other than that Immortals have actually been a decent team, sure they're not top 2 or so but they are doing things that is catchy at times maybe a little too much aggressiveness from Dardoch trying to make a play but I can forgive that due to the experience factor with the players on the team as well as their passive play styles.
Team Liquid -
Phoenix One
This team needs a mix of 50/50 aggressive/passive play from someone on the team.
Zig and Adrian are somewhat aggressive but mainly back up players because of their roles, while Ryu and Arrow are the aggressive players and with Inori he was an over aggressive player and it just didn't mix as well as it did with Meteos.
Meteos is known for not his mechanics but mainly for his follow up his lanes, he farms in the jungle and if his lanes push he moves up the map similar to say a Commander would in a battlefield; you don't want to stay too far from the troops but at the same time you don't want to get in the way of the soldiers.
Ryu and Arrow aren't good follow up roamers for the team, instead they are good lane phase players who want to play somewhat passive in lane for a bit before doing anything that might delay their builds and with Meteos being passive until 50% of the map isn't shared is the same way.
They might want what I call " push ganks" from time 2 time and it's something Meteos is really good at, instead of "kill ganks" they just want the enemy to be pushed off of them so they can farm safely for a clean back or just time for an item. This helps greatly mainly for Ryu because he just isn't a good roaming mid. Look at how many times he gets caught out either too late or just gets caught out because of roams.
Ryu is similar to say Fenix where he's good in lane but isn't stuck solely in lane ass to lane like Froggen he does roam but he needs time something that just isn't in Froggen's vocabulary. Roaming whats that ? - Froggen
Counter Logic Gaming
Stixxay/Aphroo are really under performing than what they once were but looking at the other players it's not much of a surprise. I wouldn't be surprised if this is Darshan's last year or maybe even split depending if CLG can either make it to playoffs or don't do good during playoffs.
Darshan is know for his split pushing method and I thought this meta would favor him because it's not tank tank tank but instead champions that could be used to split push maybe not like Riven/yasuo but can splitpush somewhat safely.
Xmithie isn't impressing me like he did back in 2016 with his dragon/barons steals and just being in the right place at the right time but now he's just .... there like a shadow it's everywhere you go but doesn't do anything especially in the dark and the light is closing on CLG to do something.
Facing TSM and P1 this weekend is going to be interesting that's for sure.
Echo Fox
This team reminds me of Willy Coyote where they come up with decent ideas/plays/thoughts ways to win but most of the time they just fall back down to earth after igniting a rocket/idea.
I thought Looper would have been much better than what he is showing ATM on EF, I didn't think he would smash NA but he's not far from just "another top" player.
If this team could actually TRY to help Keith, you know protect him they could be a top 3 team easily but yet they leave him out to dry as something like a decoy for dragon/baron but the problem is they do this way too often. Akkadien has the most kills on the team but is 3rd in damage while Keith is 3rd in kills but is 2nd in damage. Keith has shown in the past to maybe not "carry" but be a good LT to the CPT type of player that helps to carry with TL and TSM.
CLOUD 9
Going 0-2 is bad but at the same time it wasn't a 0-2 got destroyed type of situation, they didn't get bent over or anything but Impact was painfully bad if not comedic when it came to him, but I see Impact bouncing back and looking like the regular Impact.
C9 are a good team but it's gears aren't doing anything breaking mainly Sneaky.
Sneaky is memed for his " lane" even back in 2016 Summer it was a common Sneaky meme about not doing well in lane even tho it was common place for him how was never a 10/10 lane player. He's slowly been getting better and better in lane since his 2013 Summer start but the memes are all but gone even tho his 2016 Summer was better so for than his 2017 Spring.
Sneaky's kill participation was much higher last year, his gold differential at 15 mins was higher and his damage per min was very impressive.
2016 Summer - The meme Split Sneaky
70.1% Kill participation 8.4 CSPM +142 Gold difference 515.7 damage per minute
2017 Spring Split - The meme is gone good but he's now considered a god
60.8% Kill participation 8.4 CSPM -7 Gold difference 491.5 damage per minute
I will say tho Jensen has my vote for MVP unless he falls of a cloud and just doesn't perform like he's so far showing.
FlyQuest Hai actually has my 2nd place MVP because I didn't think he would be this impressive. The concerning part about FQ is Hai dies too much instead of the peelers dying for him, he's literally 30% of the team's deaths while Moon/Altec are around 33% COMBINED! That's the thing Hai is so much FQ that it's so easy to just walk away from Moon,Altec,Balls who don't do much of anything in lane are just aren't impressive in their career as a whole(Moon) and just go after the damage, the brains, the thought, the shotcaller, the carry, pretty much FQ itself Hai to win. The thing is FQ as a whole if they do help Hai out some the team can a monster early game and mid/late game they are pretty good but it's the early game that makes them who they are.
Dignitas
Much better than what they were at the start of the split that's for sure.
This team is like a 6 out of 10 in almost every category, the lanes are ok, the CS per min is ok, the ganks are ok, but the communication just isn't there. Like a chicken with it's head cut off it can still run around for a bit but it will fall down and eventually fold and it was happening to Dig at the start of the split they would get cut where it hits home the most and just fall, but now they are putting little fight and it's good to see, as I hate these over hyped teams just not know what to do in game deciding situations.
Team Solomid
People can say Wildturtle needs to go and while he has been shaky I will take a TSM with WT over a TSM with DL and I'll tell you why.
Wilturtle is a great teammate something Doublelift just isn't, he has gotten better but you can't just change someone in 1 split or their personalities or lifestyle, the way they were taught, raised etc.
Wildturtle comes up big for TSM. I'm not saying DL didn't for TSM or CLG but Turtle has more of a track record when it comes to exploding and shocking viewers with how much he does but yet not get noticed for doing so.
2013 Spring Turtle changed TSM from a good NA team to a respected region team, 2013 Summer he carried a team that had it's shotcaller and vocal leader Reg who was dying like 4 times a game on average.
2014 he had the most kills on TSM and helped carry them to a #1 Playoff finish in 3 grueling series in the playoffs(14 total games with each game being like 40 mins long. Hell even the Korean teams/coaches thought it was actually Turtle being the cause for the success of TSM more so than Bjergsen who has a history of being camped for 24/7.
2015 after 5 splits were Turtle was great he had 1 bad split 2015 Summer and instead of finding ways to help they trashed him instead. Yeah he got caught out but let's not delude our selves with Turtle getting caught out and Doublelift doesn't ! DL has a book called " I get caught out but pimpin ain't easy" after all.
Outside of Wildturtle we have Svenskeren who honestly is the protective layer of TSM, he either loses TSM games alone most of the time or helps with TSM winning. It's not just Sven's fault when TSM loses but it does fall on him most because of his aggressive nature and habit. He also has a history of being toxic, racist when things go sour but I won't go in detail about this being he has flip a leaf with it and it's good to see.
I'm quite interested to see if C9 can recover from the 0-2 week. While they were the top team for 5 weeks, they did not dominate. They fought hard and long to win those games.
I hope they recover. They are quite a fun team to watch because they seem to have some amazing comebacks.
LOVE CLOUD 9, HAIQUEST, DARK MEMEOS, the WHOLE FAMILY is here ready to TAKE MY ENERGY!!!
