Rift Rivals Day 1 Recap
The first day of Rift Rivals has been as I expected. The teams that are on top dominated the weak. Now let us see what sacrifices we offered to the League Gods.
Show match It was the battle of the washed up relics of old. NA happened to have the less washed up players as Dyrus still spends most of his time playing and streaming. Despite missing several skill shots that should be automatic, Westerice was on fire as he racked up kills and gold. Ocelot felt non existant on Pyke as his hooks kept on getting nullified. Dyrus was chopping up Youngbuck with his signature Olaf as he constantly got solo kills on Renekton. Even Reginald was joining in on the fun with Karma of all champs. Despite having troubles with Xpeke's Corki, he poped off as he got a Quadra Kill in a baron fight. This game was an absolute slaughter.
G2 vs C9 For how creative C9 is and playing 3D chess, it looked like G2 was playing 5D chess with all of the role swapping and map pressure. G2 was running circles around C9 from the start. However, Nisqy missed his q so badly, you thought he had a birdbox blindfold. This set off the powder keg that allowed G2 to run away with the lead. Sneaky was picked on as badly as he was in C9's first game against RNG at worlds last year. Caps looked like he was playing with hacks as he was teleporting everywhere stunning everyone with gold cards leading to certain death. This should hopefully be the the biggest blowout NA should have to endure
TL vs FNC Fortunately, this game was much closer than the previous one. This was a classic back and forth. Both teams were trading kills across the map. However, it always seemed that Liquid was one step ahead macro wise as they were better at replying to dives by taking something on the opposite side of the map. Liquid seemed to have the game within their grasp until they got too aggressive near Fnatic's base and lost key members in Impact and Jensen which enabled Fnatic to rush baron and secure it despite Xmithie being nearby. Fnatic took the gold lead off of that choke and the swing in momentum was too much. Rekkles was on a mission to prove that he was better than Doublelift and was making mince-meat to anyone who was within striking distance. Fnatic used this momentum to shred a 2nd baron and used it to break the base, destroying all three inhibs. From there the crit train just kept on rolling and ripped apart any remaining champions and objectives to seal the deal.
TSM vs OG This is arguably EU's weakest team going into Rift Rivals TSM! If you guys lose, there's going to be some problems we need to talk about. Oh right this is 2v2 Aram, it's just a casual try-hard show match. TSM picked double ranged and OG picked double tanky all in cheese. After TSM was able to escape the first all in. Their range was able to win it out and chip at OG until they got desperate and the trap was shut.
Onto the real match. EU continues with the theme of players swapping roles as Patrik and Nukeduck swapped positions. OG struck first and caused Smoothie to explode like a balloon. They then proceed to go to bot again, this time to kill Zven. Og looked like they were ganking everywhere at once with how aggressive they were early. Mithy was on a mission to make TSM regret releasing him as he was creating setups for kills across the map. A dive up top results in not only killing Broken Blade but forcing Bjergsen to TP to his death. Events like these would repeat themselves as TSM kept on triping over themselves. The picks just wouldn't stop. I was wrong, this game was an even bigger blowout than G2 vs C9. I guess the gap still applies to NA, it's just now against a different region. The damage done by OG's early game was too big and TSM could never recover.
C9 vs FNC Can NA for the love of anything holy get a win!? Oh, you're just going to roll over and die, nevermind. Bwipo had an absolute field day on Gangplank as he gotted everyone in sight. Surprisingly this game gave NA fans hope. C9 was trading kills with Fnatic early, though the Europeans had cleaner macro. After 14 minutes, Fnatic sent C9 to the butchery and snowballed to absurd levels. C9 gave NA fans hope with a few shutdowns. Optimism what is that Fnatic just runs into C9's base. They kidnapped the villagers, pillage the supplies, plunder the gold. enslave the inhabitants, and salt the Earth so nothing can ever grow again.
What did I think about today? ...................................................................................... impeccable! May we always be second fiddle to Europe
