TIP and TSM look ahead to Semifinals slugfests
The first round of the 2015 NA LCS Summer Split Quarterfinals is done and dusted, and what an opening it was. In no short order, Team Impulse blanked Team Dignitas 3-0, putting up convincing wins in two of the three games in their Best of 5 series. Meanwhile, after a shaky Game 2, Team SoloMid deposed Gravity in four games with a fresh playstyle. We caught up with the victors in advance of their Semifinals bouts this weekend.
Calming Down
Given the short series, it's almost easy to forget Team Impulse's still working with a new mid laner, Austin "Gate" Yu. "We basically had to start from all the basics. It was really hard," says Impulse support Adrian "Adrian" Ma. While Gate was still shaking off nerves at the start of the series, Adrian was pleased with Gate's debut Playoffs performance. "[The practice] worked...I was happy, he did pretty good."
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Gate wasn't the only big change for Team Impulse in this series, though. As a team often described as a hyper-aggressive one-trick pony, TIP proved they can do more than pummel their opponents fast and hard. By putting more focus than usual on their ADC, TIP allowed Apollo "Apollo" Price to shine on Kog'Maw alongside Adrian, while Eon-yeong "Impact" Jung and Yoon-jae "Rush" Lee opted for Shen and the newly buffed Elise, respectively, to consistently initiate fights in every game.
Impact lived up to his name with flashy Teleport plays and well-timed ultimates. But that's to be expected. What wasn't expected was Rush, who set aside his wildly aggressive norm for a softer, more control-oriented playstyle. It helps that Elise is able to spit out damage alongside of Cocoons (E), even when building tanky."We got all of our picks, because they didn't ban Elise or Shen," says Apollo. "They took away Kog'Maw in the third game, but I was surprised they kept their bans." The games weren't the usual series of bloodbaths, but rather a showing of how TIP has learned some, shall we say, impulse control?
Even so, Apollo was surprised at just how passively Team Dignitas played through the series. "They didn't force anything, they kind of just fell over, especially in the beginning of the games. We'd make a play early on, get maybe a one or two kill lead, and then they just didn't have any response."
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And when Team Impulse did begin to falter a bit in Game 3, opening windows of opportunity for Team Dignitas, it was because they started to feel the fatigue of a Best of 5 series. "Towards the end we lost focus in the third game," admits Adrian. "We didn't play seriously like we should have...That's a big problem of ours, we don't stay focused when we're winning."
As Apollo readily concedes, they'll need to shore up their fatigue issues if they hope to drop Counter Logic Gaming in the Semifinals this weekend. "We have to make our games more clean. The thing about CLG is they make more mistakes, so we don't need to force the plays too often," says Apollo. "We'll wait for them to make a play and make a mistake. But either way, when we're closing out a game especially, we just have to be a lot more focused and concentrated."
Fresh Threats
Who said the Bay Life boys are having problems? Back to basics Team SoloMid went this weekend, and the wins rolled right in.
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So what did basics look like? Well, for one they took Marcus "Dyrus" Hill off his island and put him on the frenzy-seeking barbarian Olaf. Posting a series KDA of 12/7/16, the move paid off.
"It was really important for us that Dyrus was able to play carry top laners for Playoffs," TSM mid laner Søren "Bjergsen" Bjerg told us after the series. "We had two weeks to really practice it as much as we wanted to. A lot of teams play Shen and Maokai, and we do play Shen and Maokai, [and] Dyrus is still great at those, but we wanted to be able to have more counter picks on top lane."
And while Bjergsen's used to playing the hero, he was okay with giving up some glory to his top laner in the 3-1 series. "I honestly don't really care much about being the carry. I just want my team to win, and I was really happy that Gravity started banning out my champions a lot, because it can enable my team to do a lot more," he says. "I'm okay playing utility champions, because I'm not playing passive by any means."
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Flipping the script on their strategy rippled throughout their series with Gravity, and clearly took its toll on the former team-to-beat. Especially for their lauded jungler, Move. Gravity's vision-focused jungler had very little presence, unable to net a single kill in any of Gravity's losses. And anyway you cut it, Lucas "Santorin" Larsen's going to be looking quite good in comparison. Of course, it helped that he had ready access to his comfort pick, Nidalee.
"I think Santorin did very well," said Bjergsen of his fellow Dane. "[He's doing] really well in scrims recently, and I think the only time he didn't have much pressure was because of our Level 1's."
As TSM looks forward to this weekend's Semifinals match against Team Liquid, you can bet they'll continue throwing new strategies at their competitors. In fact, Bjergsen believes that their flexibility will ultimately carry them to the Finals. "I think having multiple playstyles, or different strategies we can do, is going to make other teams not expect us to do just one style."
Having split 1-1 with Team Liquid during the Summer Split, Bjergsen's all too aware that their match this weekend will be anything but a waterfall. That said, he thinks the key to TSM's victory will be in the early game -- an area the boys focused on against Gravity. And he's particularly concerned about Liquid's high-powered ADC and top laner, Gwang-jin "Piglet" Chae and Diego "Quas" Ruiz.
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"If we don't play laning phase really, really solid, they just have a lot of strong individual players. They're the same kind of team we're trying to be," Bjergsen said. "If we get control early we can snowball the game, and it's the same for Liquid. If they beat us early, they'll beat us."
The 2015 NA LCS Summer Split Playoffs continue on August 15-16 with Team Impulse vs. Counter Logic Gaming and Team SoloMid vs. Team Liquid, right here on Lolesports. Don't forget to check out what the EU LCS teams had to say after their Quarterfinals matches, and to catch up on all the games from Playoffs, head over to our spoiler-free VODs page.
