The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

NA LCS Spring Week 2: Welcome to season four, apparently

(Josh Lefkowitz/Getty Images)
Roar Guru
26th January, 2018
0

The North American League Championship Series is well and truly back.

It wouldn’t have been week one without some surprises, but this week’s games delivered beyond expectations. Both TSM and CLG went 0-2 in their matches, while 100 and FOX took home two wins.

Upsets should be expected as part of a move to best of one games, and it was only compounded by all the rankings so far being solely based in on-paper assessments. But even with all the caveats of early split, two of the (apparently) stronger endemic teams losing both their games is a shocker.

The most obvious cause – other than under or over estimating team strengths – was the drastically extended average game time of 38:53 across the weekend. With a dataset of only ten games, this is skewed up by the ridiculous hour-and-four-minute slugfest that was OPT versus 100, but this wasn’t an issue isolated to North America. The last game between JAG and SKT in North Korea broke all kinds of records, including longest professional game in league of legends history, coming in just shy of 95 minutes long.

Just by comparison, the very longest average game time for a patch came out in season four summer, at around 42 minutes long. We’ve got quite a few more games on 8.1 yet to play, but it’ll be interesting to see what the global average looks like by 8.2.

I do have a point to make out of all this. As games go on for longer (especially when more than half the players have a stopwatch) it’s increasingly possible for either side to make huge strides towards a win off a single good pick, or a lucky team fight. Having a late game scaling team comp will help, for sure, but if you can catch a squishy opposing carry out, you have negated a significant part of your opponents damage for a pretty long period of time.

So having looked at the circumstances around the week’s results, let’s take a peek at those standings.

1. 100 Thieves: 2 wins – 0 losses
1. Cloud9: 2-0
1. Echo Fox: 2-0
1. Team Liquid: 2-0
5. Clutch Gaming: 1-1
5. FlyQuest: 1-1
7. Counter Logic Gaming: 0-2
7. Golden Guardians: 0-2
7. OpTic Gaming: 0-2
7. Team SoloMid: 0-2

Advertisement

No teams have played a game that would act as a head-to-head tiebreaker yet, and with the best of one format we don’t even have game win percentages to go off, so for now this is just a Clutch/Fly sandwich. This week though we should definitely get some sore distinct spread, with five games between teams currently tied.

Clutch Gaming (CG) versus Counter Logic Gaming (CLG)
9am AEDT Sunday

An interesting game to open the week. Although CLG sit at the bottom of the table currently, they put in reasonable performances in both of their matches against top-of-the-table C9 and 100. CG is a bit of a trickier team to assess coming off their first week; GGS was, as assumed, not an especially strong team coming off the start, but CG’s carries struggled to get off the ground against a substantially stronger-looking FOX.

Based on the consistency of their performance, I do expect CLG to win this week’s game. CG definitely have a strong core of players and carries, but CLG have the upper hand in the opening match of the weekend.

The teams Misfits Gaming and G2 Esports compete in final of the 'LCS', the first European division of the video game 'League of Legends', at the AccorHotels Arena in Paris on September 3, 2017.

(CHRISTOPHE SIMON/AFP/Getty Images)

Cloud9 (C9) versus Echo Fox (FOX)
10am Sunday

Both of these teams last week relied heavily on the top halves of their map for their wins. Svenskeren’s ults in C9’s game against CLG were game-winning, and Licorice’s 7/0/6 Kled performance destroyed Lourlo’s Gangplank. FOX, however, have Dardoch and Huni, who are both incredibly well-suited to the current meta, and as a duo evoked memories of Huni and Reignover on Immortals in 2016.

Advertisement

If you asked me a week ago, I would have felt pretty confident in calling this for C9, but with FOX’s standout performance last week I’m considerably less certain. I still think C9 will win, but if last week is anything to go by, FOX have a much better chance than CLG or GGS did.

Golden Guardians (GGS) versus FlyQuest (FLY)
11am Sunday

GGS have some excellent potential on their team led by Hai. Their performance last week, though, just wasn’t there. By contrast, FLY was projected to have an impossible opening week, but even with Keane substituting in Mid they put in a really solid performance even in their loss, and a win over TSM was the icing on the cake.

I haven’t been able to find out if Fly will be returning to the Midlane for FLY, but with Keane’s performance last week, it’s hard to imagine GGS taking this regardless. GGS have a lot of growing to do – and apparently intend to do just that – but it’s not going to come in a single week.

Team SoloMid (TSM) versus OpTic Gaming (OPT)
12pm Sunday

I’m not ready to write off TSM just yet, but last week was such an underwhelming performance for them. Given Svenskeren’s comments about the negative team atmosphere after losses, I have to wonder how they will turn their mindset around to win. OPT didn’t have a fantastic showing – and their scoreline shows that – but they had a solid performance despite the losses. They looked more like a good team being out played by really good teams than a bad team being beaten.

Still, for two teams with distinctly mediocre results, TSM should really have the raw individual strength to take this match on Sunday. OPT looked surprisingly good, and TSM surprisingly bad, but just not to the degree that OPT are likely to take the win off TSM.

Advertisement

100 Thieves (100) versus Team Liquid (TL)
1pm Sunday

100 had a great opener to the split. Their win over OPT wasn’t a huge surprise, but the slow, steady and clean game they took off CLG certainly was. Likewise, TL had a fantastic start to the split against TSM, with Doublelift certainly getting the takedown he hoped for against the new botlane of his new team.

These two teams are currently on top of the standings, and although TL’s win over TSM means a lot because of the status of TSM, 100’s win over CLG actually means a lot more to me in terms of team quality. Regardless, I do think TL will win, but I’m not convinced it’s going to be as easy a victory as some people seem to expect.

Team Liquid’s League of Legends team (Photo: Team Liquid)

Echo Fox (FOX) versus Team SoloMid (TSM)
9am Monday

Dardoch was unexpectedly humble in interview last week when asked about this match, saying FOX would train like they did this week for TSM. It’s got to be the best approach at this point – TSM could be still awful or flipped to incredible this week, but with FOX’s showing so far, they should be relatively comfortable in their prep for this.

By this time, TSM is likely to have their first win under their belt, which given the players on the team, could provide the ego boost they need to turn their fortunes around.

Advertisement

FOX have so much better a shot at this than they have in any point in history, and barring that miraculous turnaround from TSM, they should be able to take a victory here. If any org could pull off this kind of turnaround though, it would be TSM, so FOX will need to be careful not to be too complacent going into this match.

OpTic Gaming (OPT) versus FlyQuest (FLY)
10am Monday

OPT may be sitting tied for last right now, but their scoreline doesn’t tell the whole story. They held together for a long time against 100, who wound up going 2-0, and although the game against TL was over much more quickly, they still held on for the first twelve or so minutes.

FLY did get that win over TSM, but they also dropped a game to FOX, which ran out of their control fairly swiftly.

I suspect this game is going to be OPTs first win. Unless FLY are substantially better with Fly in Mid (assuming that his visa issues are sorted by the weekend) OPT have just shown a little more consistency against more challenging opponents than FLY have.

Team Liquid (TL) versus Clutch Gaming (CG)
11am Monday

TL are coming into this weekend on a tear, and even by day two of week two, it seems unlikely for that to have stopped. I am not so firmly aboard the hype train as others, but I still don’t want to understate how well they performed in week one. CG did manage to take a win against GGS, but that doesn’t mean quite as much as taking down TSM, struggling or not.

Advertisement

TL should be able to close this one out. CG are shaping up reasonably, for sure, but TL have the stronger individual components, and even if I don’t know if they’re the very best in the league, they still are pretty damn strong.

Cloud9 (C9) versus 100 Thieves (100)
12pm Monday

C9 showed up much better than most expected in week one, especially in their victory over CLG. This week though, both of their opponents went 2-0 in week one, which will be a real test. 100 also have a tough week two despite their strong start to the split; this will be a test for both teams, and it could be an important match for the head-to-head record as the split progresses.

It can be hard to know sometimes if I’m being biased or not, but I think C9 will just edge out 100 in this match. While Licorice will likely have a hard time against Ssumday in the top lane, the rest of the team should outperform. More than others, though, I feel like this one could come down to a well-played pick and bans.

The crowd cheers as Maryville University wins the championship in the League of Legends College Championship at the NA LCS Studio at Riot Games Arena on May 28, 2017 in Santa Monica, California.

(Photo by Josh Lefkowitz/Getty Images)

Golden Guardians (GGS) versus Counter Logic Gaming (CLG)
1pm Monday

In contrast to the penultimate game for the weekend, this has a lot of potential to be very one-sided. GGS really didn’t hit their stride in week one, and they’ll have had to make a rapid turnaround if that’s going to change by the end of this week. In fairness, CLG didn’t look excellent in week one, but they certainly had more strengths on show.

Advertisement

This is very likely to be a CLG win based on their performance so far. Their win record doesn’t really tell the whole story, whereas GGS’ more or less does; CLG just seems to be a team that needs a little more time to come together, and a week could make a real difference.

Week two is set to give us several match-ups between teams who are tied as we approach game one. Which game are you most excited for this week?

close