Breaking down the big team fights from the NA LCS Spring Split Playoffs
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NA LCS veterans Alec "Xpecial" Chu and Yu "XiaoWeiXiao" Xian are no stranger to the pressure of Playoffs. This week, the two were able to decisively work with their squads Team Liquid and Team Impulse to make it through the 2015 NA LCS Spring Split Quarterfinals. Here, they break down the biggest team fights from their Quarterfinal matches and discuss some key takeaways from each one.
"CLG had a fairly good start to the fight since their backline remained primarily untouched, [but] our team comp is just much better in a full 5 vs. 5 fight, especially with our carries being so strong," he says, explaining how Gwang-jin "Piglet" Chae's Graves, Jae-hun "FeniX" Kim's Urgot, and Diego "Quas" Ruiz's Rumble "did a significant amount of damage" after the initial engage, and were easily able to clean up the remaining CLG players.
After the team fight, Team Liquid didn't let CLG go down easily. "This fight allowed us to take CLG's top inhibitor, opening up their base and forcing them to play defensively," Xpecials says, going on to mention how before they won the match, the fight also prohibited CLG's ongoing split pushing strategy.
When Gravity finally made their way over to the Baron pit to take on Impulse as they were in the middle of fighting it, XiaoWeiXiao and his team were prepared. As he explains, "There were three reasons why we continued to do Baron when we saw Gravity."
"First, their ADC couldn't be there in time when the team fight happened. Second, we didn't think Keane could deal a lot damage because of his build." In this match, Lae-Young "Keane" Jang on Vladimir opted for a defensive build. At this point, he'd only completed his Spectre's Cowl and the Seeker's Armguard component of his Zhonya's Hourglass, making him less of a damage dealing threat. "Third, we wanted to bait the team fight because we thought our combination was stronger in the team fight."
He goes on to mention how Lee "Rush" Yoonjae on Rek'Sai and Jung "Impact" Eon-yeong on Hecarim brought huge pressure during the team fight while also completing their goal of locking down Cop. Adrian on the other hand was responsible for peeling damage off XiaoWeiXiao's Orianna and Apollo "Apollo" Price's Graves, and he did a good job of it, whereas Gravity's Michael "Bunny FuFuu" Kurylo wasn't able to stay alive long enough to make much of an impact.
"Their support should peel for their ADC. Instead he instantly died at the beginning of the team fight," XiaoWeiXiao says, also pointing out how Keane on Vladamir wasted his Ultimate, and because of his defensive build, he should’ve stayed with his team in the team fight rather than going off on his own.
This team fight led to a gold lead for Impulse, but more than anything, it smacked the team spirit of Gravity. "The ace made them lose confidence," says XiaoWeiXiao. "They played quite passive afterwards, and because we had also a very good team composition, we just snow-balled to end the game."
On the back of these fights and many others, Team Liquid and Team Impulse were able to walk away from the 2015 NA LCS Spring Split Quarterfinals victoriously. Relive their games on our spoiler-free VODs page and tune in this weekend to catch the teams compete in the Semifinals.
Raining in the Jungle
Xpecial and Team Liquid got the NA LCS Playoffs off to a bang with this explosive team fight in Game 1 against Counter Logic Gaming. After 30 minutes, things were swinging in TL's favor when Xpecial on Alistar saw the perfect opportunity to strike. "At this point in the game, we knew that we would win any 5 vs. 5," Xpecial says of his mentality before he initiated the fight. When he saw CLG's Jake "Xmithie" Puchero and Darshan "ZionSpartan" Upadhyaha caught out, he used his Righteous Glory for extra movement speed and initiated the fight, with his teammates ready to follow him up. "My goal at this point was to try to get an engage off outside of base turret range and start a fight, as long as people were fairly close." Xpecial caught up with Xmithie and Zion, using his Headbutt (W)/Pulverize (Q) combo on top of Sejuani's Glacial Prison (R) to lock them down. "My job was to provide a frontline and some crowd control to allow [my team] to output damage," he explains. "Even though we used a lot of our crowd control on CLG's tanks, it didn't matter."
"CLG had a fairly good start to the fight since their backline remained primarily untouched, [but] our team comp is just much better in a full 5 vs. 5 fight, especially with our carries being so strong," he says, explaining how Gwang-jin "Piglet" Chae's Graves, Jae-hun "FeniX" Kim's Urgot, and Diego "Quas" Ruiz's Rumble "did a significant amount of damage" after the initial engage, and were easily able to clean up the remaining CLG players.
After the team fight, Team Liquid didn't let CLG go down easily. "This fight allowed us to take CLG's top inhibitor, opening up their base and forcing them to play defensively," Xpecials says, going on to mention how before they won the match, the fight also prohibited CLG's ongoing split pushing strategy.
Let's Rush It
Team Impulse weren't looking as decisive as Team Liquid before their team fight at Baron in Game 3 against Gravity, so it was surprising when they decided to make the call to fight the beast. "There are a couple of reasons we made the call," recalls XiaoWeiXiao, bringing up positioning. "We were grouped already as five, and I also saw Cop had recalled to base and Hauntzer was at bottom lane." The veteran mid laner explains that with TiP's team composition of Hecarim, Rek'Sai, Orianna, Graves, and Alistar, they could work together to kill Baron quickly, "so I called Baron," he says.
When Gravity finally made their way over to the Baron pit to take on Impulse as they were in the middle of fighting it, XiaoWeiXiao and his team were prepared. As he explains, "There were three reasons why we continued to do Baron when we saw Gravity."
"First, their ADC couldn't be there in time when the team fight happened. Second, we didn't think Keane could deal a lot damage because of his build." In this match, Lae-Young "Keane" Jang on Vladimir opted for a defensive build. At this point, he'd only completed his Spectre's Cowl and the Seeker's Armguard component of his Zhonya's Hourglass, making him less of a damage dealing threat. "Third, we wanted to bait the team fight because we thought our combination was stronger in the team fight."
He goes on to mention how Lee "Rush" Yoonjae on Rek'Sai and Jung "Impact" Eon-yeong on Hecarim brought huge pressure during the team fight while also completing their goal of locking down Cop. Adrian on the other hand was responsible for peeling damage off XiaoWeiXiao's Orianna and Apollo "Apollo" Price's Graves, and he did a good job of it, whereas Gravity's Michael "Bunny FuFuu" Kurylo wasn't able to stay alive long enough to make much of an impact.
"Their support should peel for their ADC. Instead he instantly died at the beginning of the team fight," XiaoWeiXiao says, also pointing out how Keane on Vladamir wasted his Ultimate, and because of his defensive build, he should’ve stayed with his team in the team fight rather than going off on his own.
This team fight led to a gold lead for Impulse, but more than anything, it smacked the team spirit of Gravity. "The ace made them lose confidence," says XiaoWeiXiao. "They played quite passive afterwards, and because we had also a very good team composition, we just snow-balled to end the game."
On the back of these fights and many others, Team Liquid and Team Impulse were able to walk away from the 2015 NA LCS Spring Split Quarterfinals victoriously. Relive their games on our spoiler-free VODs page and tune in this weekend to catch the teams compete in the Semifinals.
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