The Recap: NA LCS Week 4
LMQ showed a few dents in their armor. Evil Geniuses looked stronger with their new jungler, Helios. Team SoloMid's new coach brought the team back to their former glory. Curse came through with an incredible upset, while Complexity continued to struggle. In an epic week, there was nonstop action, and here are the highlights.
GAMES OF THE WEEK
Curse vs LMQ
Curse put an emphasis on getting Vasili out of his comfort zone, and their gambit paid off. After a strong early game by LMQ, Curse flipped a switch. Iwilldominate's Elise landed several pixel-perfect Cocoons that led to double kills in critical moments, allowing Curse to take multiple Dragons. With their star AD carry off of his late game heroes, LMQ's only hope was to get Ackerman's Jax into a hyper carry position. Unfortunately, Curse had no interest in letting Ackerman get even a foothold in the game. Voyboy's Kassadin roamed all over the map finding Ackerman over and over, and catching out other LMQ members along the way. After LMQ failed to sneak a Baron, Curse caught out two LMQ members in the jungle, and took a free Baron, along with a third kill. From there, Curse was able to waltz into LMQ's crumbling base, ace their opponents, and take a stunning upset victory.
TSM vs C9
The early game was all about Cloud 9. The spring split kings seemed to be finding their groove again, turning a fight into first blood, and taking another fantastic extended fight in the top lane. From there, Hai's Fizz began to snowball-until Bjergsen's Twisted Fate hit level six and unlocked his Destiny. From that point on Bjergsen was everywhere he needed to be, catching out Hai, shutting down gank attempts, and gaining vision control for his team. After Cloud 9 forced their way into a bad fight, TSM were able to rush down Baron, and take the first inhibitor of the game. From there, Cloud 9 had no chance as Hai and Meteos got baited perfectly in the top jungle. More lack of discipline from Hai and Sneaky in the final moments of the game earned TSM two more kills, and a comeback win.
EG vs LMQ
The Evil Geniuses had this game in the bag from the beginning. The addition of Helios in the jungle seemed to revitalize the team as they shut down Ackerman throughout the laning phase. For the first 20 minutes, EG were finding kills all over the map, and it seemed as though all was lost for LMQ. And then came the stall. LMQ lost all their outer towers and got almost nothing for them, but suffered no deaths. Despite his dominating lead over Ackerman's Shyvana, Innox's split pushing Jax needed 44 minutes to crack the first tower in LMQ's base. As they stalled, Vasili's Caitlyn continued to catch up in gold, and eventually surpassed Altec's Lucian. With their late game carry in a position of power, LMQ suddenly left their base, and snuck a Baron. From there, the game became a base race. EG blinked first, and LMQ came out with an incredible victory.
BIGGEST SURPRISE
Curse or Die!
Curse has had a very rough summer split thus far. All the reports coming out of the offseason were that the team was dominating scrims and playing like a new team with the addition of Xpecial. However, fans had yet to see anything but the same old Curse thus far. Their upset against LMQ changed all of that. Many critics this week will say that LMQ were out of form, and lost the game more than Curse won it. However, Curse came into the match completely prepared for LMQ, and executed their strategy perfectly. If Curse is able to take this upset victory and use it to turn their season around, this could be the moment where Curse went from a team destined for relegation, to a team that costs one of the top level teams their spot in the playoffs.
BIGGEST DISSAPOINTMENT
EG Too Scared To Win
Any LCS fan who turned off the stream halfway through the Evil Geniuses match with LMQ would have assumed that LMQ went 0-2 this week to two weaker teams. However, despite an incredible lead, a fantastic split pushing champion in Jax, and a very solid siege composition, EG were totally unable to break LMQ's fantastic turtle defense. While LMQ played their stall game extremely well, EG's team composition should have shut the game down before 40 minutes. Instead, it took them 44 minutes to even crack LMQ's base. EG even gave up the base race that could have won them the game. Their early game was vastly improved with the addition of Helios, but if this team is going to play so passively that they give up this kind of a lead, then they might as well be relegated now, and allow a team that actually wants to win a shot at the LCS stage.
Krepo's logic: fighting ALL IN when we're behind. STALL IT OUT when we're ahead...
hint on next win: when InnoX stops coughing
