Three Takeaways From the Week Four Performance of Dignitas

Dignitas early summer woes continue as they struggle yet again in week four, finishing with a 1-2 record. In the second set of LCS round-robins, DIG versed the three teams they faced in week one, 100 Thieves, FlyQuest and Evil Geniuses. In week one, the team managed to walk away 2-1 but that was with a different roster which consisted of Joshua “Dardoch” Hartnett at Jungle and Max “Soligo” Soong in Mid. The team currently sits in sixth place with a 16-16 record with five weeks to go in the regular season. Here are three takeaways from the week four performance of Dignitas.

1. Is Akaadian Really LCS talent?

With the departure of Dardoch from the team being announced this past Friday, Matthew “Akaadian” Higginbotham” played his first full week as the starting Dignitas Jungler. Being a former LCS starter, many believed that he would not struggle with his transition from Academy into the team’s starting roster. This, however, deserves questioning. In the five games Akaadian has played with Dignitas, the only game the team has managed to win was against eighth-place Flyquest. Every other game the Jungler has struggled. 

Despite his early game being quite strong with securing early dragons and hitting level six before the enemy Jungler, he has struggled immensely when it comes to transitioning to the mid and late game. DIG managed to secure early kills and dragons in their games against TSM, Evil Geniuses, and 100 Thieves and ended up losing all three of these games. Being his first full week with the team he may deserve some slack for these errors, however, all eyes will be on the Jungler moving forward.

2. One of the Best Bot Lanes in the LCS

Everyone in the LCS community should feel for Zaqueri “Aphromoo” Black and Toàn “Neo” Trần. This AD Carry and Support duo are putting on a clinic this season, despite their team completely falling apart. Being 12 games into the season, this duo has realistically had two bad games: Neo’s Seraphine against Cloud 9 and 100 Thieves Ian Victor “FBI” Huang’s signature Kai’sa extremely out-farming Neo’s Samira. Besides that, the duo have managed to dominate their opponents, securing early double kills several times already this season. 

Unfortunately for Neo and Aphromoo, Bot Lane isn’t necessarily the strongest role in the current meta with a lot of priority being put on carry junglers. This doesn’t entirely mean they cannot carry games, it’s just that they will need some more help from their solo laners Aaron “FakeGod” Lee and David “Yusui” Bloomquist and their Jungler Akaadian. If these three can go even and make sure to not hand over free gold to the enemy team whether it be through kills or farm difference, the strong presence of Neo and Aphromoo bot can really propel this team to some wins. 

3. Macro Play Struggles

The downfalls of the two previous points really come to an intersection when discussing Dignitas’s macro play this week. If Dignitas managed to play their macro correctly this past week, they would have easily gone 3-0. Think about that. After an 0-3 weekend and their seasoning slowly falling out of their hands, a 3-0 would have put the DIG party bus right on track. It is because of this fact that Dignitas should still have fate this season.

In the past two weeks, DIG have blown four early game leads in the three mentioned before with Akaadian at Jungler and then against Golden Guardians with Dardoch. If DIG managed to win these four games, they would currently be sitting tied for third place instead of in sixth place. Having such a stout veteran shot caller on the team in Aphromoo makes the reason for this failed macro play obvious- roster changes. 

The team has had two very weird roster changes this season at very awkward timing. This has undoubtedly affected the team’s chemistry and cohesion which ultimately hurts the team’s communication, something that is necessary for transitioning into the later stages of the game. This reason should give fans of the black and yellow hope as the team will become more comfortable with each other as the season goes on, making their transition to the late game better. There is still a big red flag to be cautious about, however. Usually, it takes an offseason for a team to really become cohesive, not a couple of weeks within the season. DIG’s destiny is still in their hands and heading into the halfway mark of the split it will be interesting to see how the team performs the rest of the way. 

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