NA Summer Challenger Series Round-of-10 Recap
Riot·5/21/2014, 11:35:20 PM·0 votes·1,006 views
New faces and shuffled teams made their way into the first half of the Summer Challenger Series. Ranging from the solo queue hero to the unknown prodigy, the teams are packed with LCS quality talent just waiting to be unleashed. Find out which teams made it through to the Quarterfinals below!
Proving that Kassadin is by no means down and out after his rework, BabyZeus brought the pain train onto XDG: Virtus. Putting up a score of 12/0/9 and acquiring 15,336 gold through the end of the game, he swept across the battlefield kiting in, out, and around team fights with keen Riftwalks. He was untouchable once he picked up a triple kill after an XVT failed tower push. Not to take credit away from BabyZeus, but his team was impeccable at setting up kills for him which he hit out of the park every time. FFG is one of those upcoming teams full of stellar players tempered with LCS talent in the form of Nientonsoh that will be a top contender throughout the split.
Area of Effect’s ChumpJohn
Most top laners are stuck on an island most of the game, but ChumpJohn’s island is about the size of the entirety of Summoner’s Rift. With the assistance of Pat, he snowballed the game off a single assist due to a misplay from Necrofantasian’s Azingy. Picking up kill after kill against NF’s early game team, ChumpJohn flipped the tables on NF and destroyed their strategy by about 15-minutes in the game by completely dampening their early game power. Even stealing Baron wasn’t enough to thwart ChumpJohn’s onslaught. ChumpJohn ended the game at 11/0/11 with a stellar master course on Shyvana.
Game of the Week
Denial eSports vs. Curse Academy While the old Curse Academy was known for their obscure off-the-wall picks and unique strategies, this new Curse Academy sporting Mancloud (from XDG Gaming) and SaintVicious plays safe, well, and methodical. Though they fell behind early on, they buckled down and pushed the game into the team fight phase and patiently bided their time to unleash hell on Denial. Hell in the form of Mancloud landing killer Command:Shockwave’s with Orianna along with the combined might of Saintvicious’s Elise dives and Cris’s Jax pushing power. With LCS level experience combined with good old fashioned quality mechanics, the new Curse Academy is a beast that will dominate the NA CS. Although defeated, Denial is by no means a pushover team. Nubbypoohbear, Shynon, Ionz, and Inori are all Challenger veterans that just haven’t caught a break yet in the NA CS. Their mechanics are all there, but their synergy and ability to close out games needs work. They attempted to work out a poke composition against Curse Academy’s team fight, but fell short when they couldn’t close out games and take objectives. It takes time to build the traits needed for them to succeed, but they’ll be back in the next Series even stronger and likely will surprise everyone.Top Performers of the Week
Frank Fang Gaming’s Babyzeus
Proving that Kassadin is by no means down and out after his rework, BabyZeus brought the pain train onto XDG: Virtus. Putting up a score of 12/0/9 and acquiring 15,336 gold through the end of the game, he swept across the battlefield kiting in, out, and around team fights with keen Riftwalks. He was untouchable once he picked up a triple kill after an XVT failed tower push. Not to take credit away from BabyZeus, but his team was impeccable at setting up kills for him which he hit out of the park every time. FFG is one of those upcoming teams full of stellar players tempered with LCS talent in the form of Nientonsoh that will be a top contender throughout the split.
Area of Effect’s ChumpJohn
Most top laners are stuck on an island most of the game, but ChumpJohn’s island is about the size of the entirety of Summoner’s Rift. With the assistance of Pat, he snowballed the game off a single assist due to a misplay from Necrofantasian’s Azingy. Picking up kill after kill against NF’s early game team, ChumpJohn flipped the tables on NF and destroyed their strategy by about 15-minutes in the game by completely dampening their early game power. Even stealing Baron wasn’t enough to thwart ChumpJohn’s onslaught. ChumpJohn ended the game at 11/0/11 with a stellar master course on Shyvana.
