Liquid shrugs off AP Ezreal to down Dignitas
It didn't take long. In just 28 minutes, Team Liquid methodically tore Team Dignitas down in the North American LCS Game of the Week.
Team Liquid's top laner Diego "Quas" Ruiz believes the win came straight from Champion Select. "I think what mattered the most this game were our priority picks and how we drafted," he says. "I think we drafted perfectly, and we just naturally played team fights really well because our champions had so many synergies together and they were pretty bad against what we had."
Team Dignitas went for a trendy poke composition -- complete with AP Ezreal -- while Team Liquid opted for champions who could split push. "We were kind of scared going into [the AP Ezreal]. We do all think that the AP Ezreal is really strong in terms of damage," he says. "But we were kind of confident as well, because our team comp was good going into the Ezreal."
[[{"fid":"17444","view_mode":"full","fields":{"format":"full","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":""},"tagName":"IMG","src":"http%3A//admin.prod.lolesports.com/s3/files/styles/full_width_scale/public/quas3.png%3Fitok%3DU47Wo-kU","type":"media","attributes":{"class":"media-element file-full","height":"315","width":"700"}}]]
"I think Sivir is a really high priority pick. We were kind of afraid that'd be their first pick," he continues. "Gladly, they didn't take a jungler or Sivir. They decided to take Alistar over the two of them." This allowed Liquid to scoop up Sivir and Rek'Sai in their first rotation, giving them plenty of options to build around whatever Team Dignitas chose. "They kind of screwed themselves over with the Alistar first pick."
Quas also dug into their Shen pick, especially after Team Liquid blind picked Maokai. "We got lucky that they picked Shen into it, which isn't even a good matchup for him," he explains. "So I was able to pressure him and also outperform in team fights."
[[{"fid":"17443","view_mode":"full","fields":{"format":"full","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":""},"tagName":"IMG","src":"http%3A//admin.prod.lolesports.com/s3/files/styles/full_width_scale/public/quas2.png%3Fitok%3DONUFubsb","type":"media","attributes":{"class":"media-element file-full","height":"314","width":"699"}}]]
The victory was one of the most decisive we've seen from Team Liquid all summer, and Quas walked away from the Game of the Week proud of himself and his teammates.
"I definitely think this was one of our better games. We played our comp to the best potential. We went to the right targets and we played it really perfectly and it showed," he says. "Every team fight looked extremely one sided, so I'm really proud about our performance, and it turned out to be a lot easier of a matchup than I thought."
Next week, Quas and Team Liquid will face off against Team Dragon Knights and Team SoloMid. Let us know what you thought of the Game of the Week in the comments, and if you happened to miss any of the action from the NA LCS, head over to our spoiler-free VODs page.
Leah Jackson is a web content editor at Lolesports. She loves Gnar! Feel free to follow her on Twitter @Leahbjackson.
