Kingslayers - IWDominate and Team Liquid take down TSM
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"Just because a team has a 9-1 record doesn't mean they have an advantage over you when the game starts up," says Team Liquid jungler Christian "IWDominate" Rivera.
Coming into their second game of Week 5, Team Liquid knew they'd have to face off against the first place Team SoloMid. As they prepped for the match, Dominate made sure that his teammates were all on the same page. "It's not like [TSM] get an extra item or something," he laughed. "It's an even game, and they need to be able to outplay you in this specific circumstance. We can lose if we make mistakes, but they have to actually beat us."
As it turns out, that mentality was exactly what Liquid needed to bring down the current kings of North America.
It wasn't easy, though. Following a fierce defense of TSM's Nexus by Jason "WildTurtle" Tran and the rest of his team, there was a moment when it looked like TSM could have tilted things in their favor. Then, it was up to veteran shotcaller Dominate to keep everyone on Liquid on the right track.
"'Alright, we're still fine, we have fifth Dragon, they have no inhibitors,'" he said to reassure his squad. "You state the facts of the position you're in, just to reassure them that even if you lose the fight, you're not going to lose the game."
Once he had everyone calmed down, it was time to lay out the plan: "It's mainly making sure that everyone's calm, they don't get too emotional, they don't feel like they have to do anything. Honestly, we didn't even need to do anything to win the game. We did all the work, we got all three inhibs, Baron, and Dragon. We took every objective on the map. All that was left was to group with the minion waves and sit on their base."
Obviously, it worked. Liquid just waited for TSM to make a mistake -- this time, leaving their base to contest Baron -- and that's when Liquid went ahead and finished things up.
But the victory wasn't all about veteran leadership, says Dominate. It was also largely about team cohesion. "I think it's important to have some veterans on a team," he says. "But, for example, Keith is a new player, while Piglet is a seasoned veteran, World Champion, etc. For some reason, though, Keith works better for our team. It's mainly just about having everyone listening to someone. If we're all, as a team, listening to my shotcalls, even if they're sub-optimal, it's better than us having three different calls. It's better to have everyone listening to one person."
On the second day of Week 5, those cohesive shotcalls seemed to be working. But with the unpredictable nature of Team Liquid's season so far, there's still a lot of work to do.
Keep your eye on Lolesports to see if Team Liquid can stay calm and keep winning. For any games you want to catch up on, check out the spoiler-free VODs page.
