Well, at least TSM made SSW work for their win

John Berserk·10/3/2014, 12:03:25 PM·6 votes·2,891 views

First two games were flat out embarrassing to watch, honestly.

Third game, TSM did a good job at punishing SSW for their arrogance. They needed a bit of a slap back into reality that they were not immortal Gods who could beat any weak lowly NA team even with the worst early game comp imaginable in this meta.

Fourth game, it almost happened again. Had SSW not snowballed quite so hard as they did, I feel like a second TSM victory was a very, very real possibility. Alas, it wasn't meant to be. But hey, that game was nothing like games 1 and 2 where SSW just danced on top of TSM, they actually had to work for that one, and making probably the strongest team in the world (they look leagues stronger than SSB honestly) bleed once, then work for their final victory right after, that's more than we could have hoped for from TSM.

You did good TSM. Better luck next year.

32 Comments

John Berserk10/3/2014, 12:05:37 PM4 votes

Now for C9 to show Korea what NA is really capable of on the strategy front. The chances of C9 taking out SSB aren't very high, but I think they're much higher than TSM's chances against SSW, and look how well they ended up performing.

So long as C9 plays the way they did when they beat NWS, they should really give SSB a run for their money.

NeroUS10/3/2014, 8:37:45 PM2 votes

I think the real measure of the NA region is C9 since LMQ is a transplant team and TSM has a lot of transplant players as well. C9 was nowhere near this good last season. It's amazing that they could even take a game off of Najin White Shield.

I think it just shows how much LMQ developed the NA region. Now, we need a Riot to allow a Korean team to move to NA so that NA can get another boost. In fact, I would consider having a foreign team that rotates into the NA LCS each season from whichever region wins Worlds.

Can C9 beat SSB? Of course, Cloud 9 could beat them. Is it likely? Probably not but that doesn't mean a loss is a foregone conclusion. The good news is that it is more practice for NA against good teams.

Cuoco Diavolo10/3/2014, 10:31:36 PM2 votes

Gonna be honest the biggest weakness that the non korean teams have and it saddens me cause these are my main roles is having a diverse champ pool in top and jungle. NA teams seem to be terrified of breaking the meta which saddens me cause they are scared to make innovations. I take great pride in my 10+ champ pool for each role and it makes me that much of a stronger player. However seeing Dyrus on lulu made me realize how chained TSM was by the meta. It was a we banned Mao and ali they banned rumble and first picked Ryze guys what are the other meta picks for top lulu locks in lulu doesn't play well in the game. If they were willing to bring out other picks that didn't follow the meta I feel TSM could have possibly won 2 or even games or even beat SSW by pulling off better outplays.

Kaisuna10/3/2014, 8:32:45 PM1 votes

TSM played well Vs a much better version of themselves, on another note I was surprised that WIldTurtle was not only able to keep up with Imp but beat him in lane but the fact that SSW was able to adapt to that and not even be bothered by it threw TSM with their unusual play style. TSM did all they could and had nothing to prove to the Korean's they are still the best team in North America (and better than all EU teams and better than CLG) C9 has the best chance as far as a North American team going to the Semi Finals. The biggest problem with TSM this tournament was they haven't had a lot of time together as a team to build good synergy which was potentially their downfall in this tournament.

KSHarrison10/3/2014, 2:41:33 PM1 votes

TSM wasn't prepped for that level 1 stuff. SSW and TSM were scrim partners, probably SSW noticed this weakness in TSM and exploited it. I think that put TSM on tilt. The problem is that training against the myriad things that can go wrong is impossible in NA. TSM probably encountered so many different tactics on a level they've never seen before and had around a month to adapt.

Hopefully next year things will go better. NA as a region is improving quickly so there's a chance that TSM will have less catching up to do when they reach worlds.

RedTube Madness10/4/2014, 4:01:39 AM1 votes

lol u wish tsm is soo weak ssw didn't even play srs they were just having fun

Jesot10/4/2014, 12:40:04 AM1 votes

TSM dropped the ball in Game 4. If TSM moved to Korea, they'd get to the same level as SSB & SSW. They just don't have the consistent level of competition in NA to scrim against. They play against the same tired old teams all the time. I feel NA needs to put more resources into the Challenger series to help create stronger teams at the lower and middle tiers. TSM, C9, and LMQ match Korea and China with individual players, but they don't face much variety in quality team strats.

12tales10/3/2014, 7:20:44 PM1 votes

It's telling how low our standards have fallen.