The Recap: NACS Playoffs Heat Up
Riot·4/6/2014, 4:45:45 AM·0 votes·634 views
The promotion tournament is fast approaching for the challenger teams, and it’s time to show the world what they’re capable of. The bottom four teams competed this weekend to advance up the brackets and beat out the other challengers for their shot at a seat on the LCS stage. The two teams advancing onwards, col.Black and Curse Academy, will be facing the top two teams, LMQ and Cloud 9 Tempest, for their spot in the top three to move onto the promotion stage later in May.
In one of the most action packed first four minutes of any game a lot of us have ever seen – coL.Black pushed down an entire lane worth of towers in mere minutes. Securing a near 2k gold lead before coL.Red knew what was going on, coL.Black steamrolled the game into a sub-10 minute mid-game without losing anyone. They caught coL.Red unaware and threw them off balance with pinpoint precision and poise. This single four minute period sealed the fate on coL.Red’s hopes in game one, and it was an absolutely spectacular play from coL.Black.
vVv Cris’s Riven
Even though vVv lost their matches 2-0, Cris’s Riven in game two was a dominating force that nearly flipped a game over on its head. His build strategy, positioning, and engage timing were nearly perfect once the game moved on to the objective team fight phase. He absolutely dominated an entire cluster of players from Curse Academy in one fell swoop, and nearly won the game by mere seconds had it not been for respawn timers. If you need a crash course in how to play Riven, be sure to check out the replays of this game!
Continuing their trend of holding each other’s hand every single game, when Rhux and Pat combine it creates an unstoppable force. They feed off one another and keep the snowball rolling from level one onwards. Together, they pull the pressure top while relieving pressure on the other two lanes to allow them to farm without fearing jungle presence. These two are the key to Curse Academy’s victory nearly every time, determining exactly how the entire team will transition into later stages of the game. If they do poorly, they will more than likely lose and vice versa. It’s rare to see such high level of synergy between two players in challenger, and it’s invaluable to their success in NACS.
Noteworthy Items of the Week
compLexity.Black’s Early Game Strategies
In one of the most action packed first four minutes of any game a lot of us have ever seen – coL.Black pushed down an entire lane worth of towers in mere minutes. Securing a near 2k gold lead before coL.Red knew what was going on, coL.Black steamrolled the game into a sub-10 minute mid-game without losing anyone. They caught coL.Red unaware and threw them off balance with pinpoint precision and poise. This single four minute period sealed the fate on coL.Red’s hopes in game one, and it was an absolutely spectacular play from coL.Black.
vVv Cris’s Riven
Even though vVv lost their matches 2-0, Cris’s Riven in game two was a dominating force that nearly flipped a game over on its head. His build strategy, positioning, and engage timing were nearly perfect once the game moved on to the objective team fight phase. He absolutely dominated an entire cluster of players from Curse Academy in one fell swoop, and nearly won the game by mere seconds had it not been for respawn timers. If you need a crash course in how to play Riven, be sure to check out the replays of this game!
Overachievers of the Week
Curse Academy’s Rhux and Pat
Continuing their trend of holding each other’s hand every single game, when Rhux and Pat combine it creates an unstoppable force. They feed off one another and keep the snowball rolling from level one onwards. Together, they pull the pressure top while relieving pressure on the other two lanes to allow them to farm without fearing jungle presence. These two are the key to Curse Academy’s victory nearly every time, determining exactly how the entire team will transition into later stages of the game. If they do poorly, they will more than likely lose and vice versa. It’s rare to see such high level of synergy between two players in challenger, and it’s invaluable to their success in NACS.