The third place game
will be played by Immortals, whom lost to TSM, and Team Liquid, they lost against CLG. In previous LCS seasons, the Spring Split did not give points towards qualifying for worlds. In previous seasons, spring split was mostly fought over money and the third place game did not get much attention. However, with how competitive the League has become and the distribution of points in order to qualify for Worlds, the third place game has gotten more exciting to watch. In fact, the third place game can even be more exciting than the finals in the summer split because both finalists can already be qualified whereas the third place game could determine the teams that make it to the gauntlet. Even though this is the Spring split, both teams will surely play with everything they have in order to get the maximum amount of points heading into the summer split.
Immortals:
After rolling through the regular season with an 17-1 record, and not playing in the quarterfinals, they started slow against TSM. However, to the surprise of everyone they never recovered in that series. They were swept by TSM in an extremely disappointing 3-0. Immortals accomplished so much during the regular season that they should still come in as the favorites. Immortals biggest weakness coming into the match is not that Huni cannot play tanks or that the meta is shifting away from Reignover, their weakness is psychological. It is fair to say that regardless the result in the semifinals was, they had accomplish enough to suggest they would easily surpass TSM, it would follow that they were overconfident in that match-up and for good reasons. Confidence is a really good asset in pro Lol, and the fact that Immortals will double think its ability to win games in the current meta will play tremendously in TL’s favor. However, TL must capitalize on it quickly. The first game will be incredibly telling on how the series will play out. If Immortals wins the first game and is able to restore confidence, the series should go their way. But if TL comes out winning the first battle on the rift, their psychological advantage will seem too great to overcome.
Another vulnerability that Immortals was exposed to is its inability to play tanks. Huni has never been known for playing tanks and last year at the world championship he decided to play tanks against Smeb, who showed him how to play carry top laners. In light of Huni’s inability to adapt or win lane against Smeb, the default position seemed to be to play tank champions and contain Smeb. Huni did not give his team and chance and chose to battle it out every time. Either Huni is completely unwilling to play tank champions or he just doesn’t know how to play them. Either way, if he doesn’t realize that we are in a tank meta coming into Las Vegas, TL will almost certainly win unless they can get their tanks from other roles.
Team Liquid:
Their incredible turnaround should be celebrated from a management point of view. However, TL seems to never be satisfied and that leads to positive and negative consequences. On the bright side, they will never get complaisant and will always obsess to be the best. On the negative side TL should not be so hard on itself because it will surely have confidence problems down the road. This is the last place team after the first two weeks of the split, and they turnaround the season and came into the semifinals thinking that they could win it all. Their actions speak louder than their voices and they surely looked like under the right circumstances, TL could be the North American representative heading into MSI. However, they should not be so stubborn to think that it is a disappointing season that did not portray who the best team really was. They should look to the split as a learning experience and do their best to prepare for next season. It is surely disappointing to think you are the favorite to accomplish something and then fail to live up to your best, but it is more disappointing to live in the past and think that you deserved it more than whoever won it.
Contrasting Immortals, TL comes in with their confidence through the roof. They played a tough semifinal and showed that they can battle toe to toe with the second seed from North America. Although they did not win, seeing all the progress that went trough within the organization in order to even qualify for playoffs, TL comes in hoping to break the curse of always getting 4th place. TL’s confidence and their good grasp of the meat will give them a big edge over Immortals.
I think most people would still predict Immortals to win the semifinal, but I think TL will come out on top.
courtesy of lolesports.com, bigbadesports.com and dailydot.com