TIP vs. TSM: Preying on mistakes
It's getting down to the wire! With only two weeks left in the North American LCS Summer Split, every team has a lot riding on their final few games. Heading in to the NA LCS Game of the Week with tied 9-5 records, both Team SoloMid and Team Impulse are looking for a single win to clinch a spot in the NA LCS Playoffs.
Matching Up
The patient playmakers on TSM had their first 0-2 week of the entire 2015 Season in Week 7, and while some have seen it as a sign of decline, TIP's AD carry Apollo "Apollo" Price actually feels it'll only help them bounce back this week. "It just means they're going to be practicing extra hard. They have a lot of reviewing and a lot of stuff to look over to see what mistakes they made," he says. Whether it's coming up with new strategies or champions to try, if TSM want a potential bye week in the Playoffs, they're going to have to fight through TIP (and DIG, NME, and C9) first.
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TIP, on the other hand, is coming into the Game of the Week off a huge five-game win streak -- similar to their run in the second half of the 2015 Spring Split. They're not afraid to dive anyone or go for a massive team fight, even if they haven't hit crucial power spikes yet. And lately, it's worked. While TSM have been trying to right their ship, TIP's been sailing towards success. If they're able to defeat TSM in this week's rematch, (and TDK, GV, and TL in their subsequent games), it's another huge step on the way towards their own bye week in the NA LCS Playoffs.
Both teams love roaming around the map and finding exploits in their enemy's strategies from the get-go, but one hyper-intense area to watch out for could be the mid lane match up between NA LCS veterans Yu "XiaoWeiXiao" Xian and Søren "Bjergsen" Bjerg. "Right now I feel like Bjergsen overall is a stronger player. He has a bigger pool and I feel like regardless of what XiaoWeiXiao picks, we'll always have a counter pick," says TSM jungler Lucas "Santorin" Larsen. "So it's more about who puts the right pressure on the map."
Branching out
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Against TSM, many teams this split have had success with their throw-everything-in-the-sink-then-the-sink at Bjergsen tactics, as one tiny mistake from the Bjerger King can spell certain disaster for his entire team. Apollo doesn't think it's necessary for TIP to constantly pressure the mid lane, though. Instead, he says TIP needs to focus on getting TSM's other lanes as far as behind as possible. "If we try to focus mid, it might not be the best idea for us," he explains. "We may focus on bot or top lane, just so that we're not playing to their game, we're playing to our game."
While TIP's thinking about the best way to not feed into TSM's mid-focused tendencies, Santorin knows his team needs to focus on the threatening advances and all-ins of TIP's jungler, Yoon-jae "Rush" Lee. "Every single time he sees [an opportunity], he'll go for it, and that can be abused because he'll always take the fight," says TSM's jungler. "If you bait him in he'll probably go on you. And I feel like that's something you can play around."
If TSM's able to exploit TIP's vision control, they'll also be able to stay one step ahead of Rush. "If you know where he's going to be, he can't do anything," says Santorin. But TIP's support Adrian "Adrian" Ma's not going to make it easy for TSM to set anything up. He places the most wards in the NA LCS and has the most assists, so he'll be keeping an ever-watchful eye over potential ganks and counterplay from TSM.
According to Santorin though, this game is all going to come down to team fighting and rotations, which bodes well for the orderly style of TSM. They're known for stalling out their early advantages and waiting for the perfect opportunity to make plays, whereas TIP's chaotic nature has them searching for fights -- even if they've fallen behind. "I feel like we would beat them in rotations, but if it comes to team fighting, they're a strong team now too," Santorin explains.
"Even though we might not have the best team fighting in terms of how clean it is, we'll still go for it," says Apollo. "They're more methodical and try to get the perfect opening, and if they don't get it, they'll start to falter and make small mistakes."
Nerves of Steel
No matter how the macro strategy plays out, another thing to keep in mind heading into the Game of the Week are the 5.13 Patch changes. That's right, all those AP item changes are finally hitting the NA LCS this weekend, and as we saw in the EU LCS Game of the Week between H2K and Giants Gaming, they're already making a splash. H2K's Ryu went 14/1/4 as Ahri against Giants, boosted by the strength of the improved Rylai's Crystal Scepter in his devastating build.
New items aside, Apollo does a great job of summing up this week's rematch against TSM plain and simply. "They're a good team, we're a good team, it'll be a good match. A lot of it comes down to picks and bans. And I'm not scared of Bjergsen," he says.
Oh yeah? "Well, maybe a little bit..."
With Playoff implications and Worlds right around the corner, we'll see if TSM can give TIP something to be afraid of, or if it'll be TIP bringing the pain when these two teams face off in the NA LCS Game of the Week on Saturday, right here on Lolesports.
Leah Jackson is a web content editor at Lolesports. She loves Gnar! Feel free to follow her on Twitter @Leahbjackson.
