The Dignitas season came to an end yesterday as they fell to Immortals 3-0 in the Lower Bracket of the LCS 2021 Championship.
Going into the series, sixth seed Dignitas had a much better chance of winning than they did last week as they were now up against the seventh seed Immortals instead of the three seed Evil Geniuses. This difference in standing seemed to play no difference for the black and yellow however, as they failed to even capture a game against Immortals.
Not only did they fail to capture a game but Dignitas also failed to secure a legitimate lead in any of the three matches as Immortals looked like the superior team from top to bottom throughout the series. Many pointed to Dignitas’ Upper Bracket series against Evil Geniuses last week as valuable experience going into the Immortals series, but what was lost in track was the fact that Immortals had an extra week of planning and preparation for this series.
“We focused the whole two weeks on Dignitas, that was what we were expecting,” Immortals head coach André Guilhoto said in a sideline interview during game one. “We were just focusing on ways that we have to play in order to nullify their potential to snowball through Bot Lane as well as trying to force Akaadian to do some stuff that he’s not really used to.”
Game 1
In game one itself, Dignitas seemed to secure the advantage in the draft as their top 10 MVP candidate Jungler Matthew “Akaadian” Higginbotham got the strong meta champ Xin Zhao while Immortals Jungler Andrei “Xerxe” Dragomir got the weak, rarely played Zac. Not only this, but Dignitas also drafted a winning Bot Lane in Tristana and Leona against Syndra and Rakan.
Dignitas started off strong after an early tower dive on Immortals Top Laner Mohamed “Revenge” Kaddoura but failed to be proactive following that. They sat back and allowed Immortals to get their items and scale and when it came to the first and second big team fights of the game Immortals blew Dignitas out of the water, ultimately finishing the game in 26 minutes.
What came to much of a surprise after game one was the strong performances of Immortals solo laners Revenge and David “Insanity” Challe. Despite it being both the players first playoff game, they greatly outperformed their Dignitas counterparts Top Laner Aaron “FakeGod” Lee and Mid Laner David “Yusui” Bloomquist. This wasn’t a one game fluke either, as both Immortals players performed well in all three games with Revenge even securing the Player of The Series accolade.
“I was really nervous and excited about this day for pretty much the whole year,” Revenge said in his post game interview after the series. “The fact that we didn’t just get insta-eliminated makes me just so happy. We’ve just been working so hard. We really came together as a team today.”
Game 2
Game two saw much of the same domination from Immortals except this time coming much earlier in the game. The pre-game draft for Dignitas went terribly as they gave away Alpheios, Thresh, LeBlanc and Viego, four extremely strong meta champions to Immortals. The team even let Immortals get Viego every single game despite Revenge and Xerxe both destroying Dignitas on the champion.
After game two it was evident that Immortals’ extra week of planning against Dignitas was paying off as they had the team down to the T. On the brink of elimination, Dignitas had to try something different in hopes of keeping their season alive and that they did with the Qiyana pick by Yusui in game three.
Game 3
After a ton of early to mid game fighting, Dignitas was already performing better than they did in the previous two games. They could never, however, fully pull ahead and establish a dominant lead. With Yusui taking Ignite instead of Teleport the team NEEDED to win early or else they would be doomed as Immortals had three teleports and could easily play out the game in a 1-3-1 fashion.
After a great Thresh hook by Dignitas support Zaqueri “Aphromoo” Black, the team was able to pick off Insanity, creating a five versus four scenario. With the number’s advantage, Dignitas decided to try and take the Baron to hopefully turn the game into their favor. Dignitas’ chances were destroyed however by a phenomenal Baron steal by Xerxe. Immortals would then go on to ace Dignitas and finish the game off of that play.
3-0! @XerxeLoL steals the Baron and @Immortals secure the team fight and the series victory against @DignitasLoL! #IMTWIN #LCS pic.twitter.com/9UpbfIyyLs
— LCS (@LCSOfficial) August 13, 2021
Results
With the win, Immortals advanced to the next round where they will play the loser of first seed TSM and fifth seed Team Liquid next Friday at 6:00 PM.
“I want to play TSM more than [Team Liquid] because I feel like they are a lot more fun to play,” Insanity said while on the analyst desk after the series. “I want to be able to come out with a win and the series but just being able to beat them as well would be really nice.”
With the loss, Dignitas are officially eliminated from the LCS 2021 Championship and begin their offseason.
After such a strong Spring Split, where the team surprised many and finished tied for fourth with an 11-7 record and such a shaky Summer Split, which saw early roster changes in the Mid Lane and Jungle, walking away without a single playoff series win must hurt the team and organization in every which way. Dignitas saw flashes of greatness in the past year, such as their summer upsets against top teams TSM and 100 Thieves but they just could never really hold it together and remain consistent.
The black and yellow are far from the top of the LCS but if they want to start heading in the right direction towards it, expect the upcoming four months to be full of major decisions pertaining to their roster and coaching staff.
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