Team 8 throw everything at Bjergsen to take down Team SoloMid

Riot·Jul 12, 2015·0 votes·9,781 views

"I think that was our best game of the season," said Team 8's jungler Braeden "Porpoise8" Schwark's after their intense 40-minute victory against Team SoloMid.

Breaking their Saturday curse, Team 8 came into the game against TSM well prepared. "We planned almost the entire week," he says. "Thinking about different things they were going to do in the picks and bans phase and in the game. We just studied them and studied them."

The draft Team 8 ended up with was a very comfortable one, according to Porpoise. "They first rotation chose Shen and Nautilus, and then we got Kalista as a first pick. That's what we wanted," he says of the picks and ban phase. TSM then tried to counter the Kalista with the all-in potential from Vi and Nautilus' ultimates, so Team 8 responded by locking in Azir for his excellent disengage.

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"All of our champions worked really well together. We had a lot of engage and a lot of disengage, so we could play it any way we wanted to." The only thing that had them nervous was Søren "Bjergsen" Bjerg's dangerous AP Ezreal. "Bjergsen did really well on the Ezreal. He got very, very strong. That was the big thing we were scared of, was not being able to kill him in fights."

"If we left him alive, he was going to clean us all up we felt like, so the whole game we were calling to avoid his ultimates and avoid his damage so that we didn't have to always keep backing and healing up," Porpoise explains. "We did really well! Then, finally at the last fight, we killed the Ezreal."

Destroyed is more like it. Team SoloMid weren't able to get a solid engage, as they couldn't poke anyone down before Marcus "Dyrus" Hill ran in. With TSM's tank busy, Team 8 knew this was the perfect opportunity to focus down Ezreal. "We were all yelling to go on the guy, and we all just tried to follow up and do as much damage to him, just throw stuff at him."

They ended up throwing almost everything they had to take down TSM's star mid laner, including three aggressive Flashes and the ultimates of Gragas, Kalista, and Maokai. Jason "WildTurtle" Tran had minimal impact in the fight, and despite the peeling efforts of Lucas "Santorin" Larsen and Jang-sik "Lustboy" Ham -- and the fancy footwork of Bjergsen himself -- Ezreal wasn't able to live through Team 8's punishing onslaught, and it cost TSM the game.

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Now that they've taken out TSM, Porpoise and Team 8 are looking ahead to their Day 2 match against Team Impulse. "Our game tomorrow will actually be really tough because TIP is so unpredictable and they're so aggressive too," Porpoise says. But he also thinks that it's because of that aggression that TIP's more prone to make mistakes. "[The outcome] is really dependent on how we play, but I'm feeling good about it."

What did you think of Team 8's upset against Team SoloMid? Let us know in the comments below, and don't miss Team 8 vs. TIP tomorrow, right here on Lolesports. If you've missed any of the NA LCS so far, you can catch every game via the spoiler-free VODs page.

18 Comments

3X15T3NC315P41NJul 12, 20154 votes

Look at all the salty TSM fans. Haha get rekt

MmlewnWhpmJul 12, 20153 votes

Tsm is at their best when Bjergsen can make plays on his own/help the rest of the team early, I thought they'd figured that out themselves by now (everybody else has) Ezreal on the other hand is a champ that doesn't do any of these things well.

FinalRetaliationJul 12, 20152 votes

They are at their best like that in NA. And they know that they will be figured out and countered the moment they set foot on the World stage. That's why they tried something new at MSI, even though it all crumbled around them. That very first game against Fnatic was the epitomy of their fears coming true - Reignover and Yellowstar did to Bjergsen what Santorin and Lustboy had been doing to other mid laners, but Fnatic did it faster. TSM might suck, but at least they recognize that if they play around mid lane alone, they won't get anywhere. Maybe next year they will have a good showing, once they have developed some other styles.

Trump4ReelectionJul 12, 20156 votes

TSM's biggest weakness is disrespecting the low tears by not preparing seriously for them, and assuming.raw game knowledge and mechanical skill is going to win for them. In fact that's he issue with a lot of top teams. Fnatic has been my team forever, and I like how hard they take every match. Any less than perfection is not good enough whether it be from the top teams or the bottom.

SKT plays a TSM esq style too, where Bengi marin and wolf all help faker quite a bit, and they are successful in it, it's TSM not respecting new picks in their very prevalent vulnerability to cheese strategies like when urgot came out mid lane for the first time. And their lack of respect for the bottom of the tables. Losing to cloud 9 day 1 was a huge show of that. Late game aoe poke comp they knew c9 had vision of them and they walked into a jungle choke without warding and ate an equalizer and a literal shit ton of living artillery and just got melted because they dont respect their opponents skill. They ate complacent often times as a team.

ponkzyJul 12, 20152 votes

the thing is faker is a top mid laner and has proven on multiple occasions he can carry at the highest level. bjerg can't even carry against low-mid level NA teams consistently

Earl EulrichJul 13, 20151 votes

though it also had been proven that "put everything on faker" does not really work out once your opponents hit a certain lvl of skill (S4 they didnßt even get a spot for worlds and SSW just utterly destroyed them in the playoffs). It´s just too one-dimensional to relay that heavy on one player/lane.

GhrianJul 12, 20153 votes

This game basically was a Kabum 2.

obodoboJul 12, 20155 votes

This is a little less harsh than the Kabum incident. Kabum didn't have a single win and took down an EU "dream team" whereas T8 has already grabbed some victories for themselves and took down a 2nd/3rd place team. Not as bad of an upset.

DibonyJul 12, 20154 votes

kabum 2 was when WE won against ge tigers in IEM Katowice

AH AkashiJul 12, 20152 votes

My favorite team is TSM, and my favorite player is Bjergsen, but he played very bad. I think he can't play Ezreal.. TSM need a new mid laner, cause Bjerg now play very bad. He need a little pause.

bobbyzillaJul 12, 20152 votes

i think that bjergsen should go someone else, not ezreal in todays match. TSM should make good bans and picks

IronhandJul 12, 20152 votes

Team 8 was never a "bad" team per say, it was just that too many of them wanted to do their own thing. Especially CalliTrolz. This game showed what they were capable of when they communicated well and worked as a team. I'm still hoping that C9 can put together an upset performance, and I haven't given up yet.