After a solid 2-1 opening weekend, Dignitas go into week two tied for third place with Team Liquid and 100 Thieves. Both of those wins came from sub .500 teams Evil Geniuses and FlyQuest, this week DIG is in for a whole lot stronger competition. To start things off DIG will face blue blood Team Liquid on Friday, then see a surging Immortals team on Saturday while capping it off their weekend against the reigning champions Cloud 9. To say that this weekend will be challenging for DIG is an understatement but if played correctly, DIG can walk away from this weekend with a solid one or two wins. Here are three things Dignitas needs to do for a successful week two:
1. Show Why They Promoted Yusui
On Wednesday DIG dropped a bombshell in announcing that they would be swapping their LCS Mid Laner Max “Soligo” Soong for Academy mid laner David “Yusui” Bloomquist. The news comes as a surprise to many as Soligo performed well in the opening weekend, especially in DIG’s game against Evil Geniuses where his Akali performance helped the team come back from a huge gold deficit.
Regardless of what the community thinks of the move, DIG believes in Yusui and in his debut weekend they must make sure to support him. It won’t be easy for the Mid Laner as he will have to verse Nicolaj “Jensen” Jensen and Luka “Perkz” Perković, two of the best at the position in not only the LCS but also the world. Yusui doesn’t have to dominate in any of DIG’s games this weekend. As long as the Mid Laner keeps up with the competition and shows to be a good fit in the team’s heavy team fighting style, DIG can be happy with the move and keep moving forward with the season.
2. Slow Down Xerxe
No team in the LCS is hotter right now than Immortals. After a highly unexpected 3-0 start, the team is rolling. They are looking to continue their strong play right behind their Jungler and LCS player of the week Andrei “Xerxe” Dragomir. Immortals will most likely build their comp around Xerxe so there will be no way in truly stopping him, instead, DIG must focus on slowing the jungler down.
In draft, DIG must force him away from strong carry Junglers such as Rumble, Udyr and Xin Zhao by banning at least some of those champions. They must also try to secure a flex support such as Karma and Lulu to not allow the Immortals supporting cast to play these champions. In-game, DIG will want to track Xerxe as well. Whatever DIG decide to do, they must, at all cost, prevent Xerxe from getting on a roll. If they don’t, things won’t look too good for the black and yellow.
3. Team Fight, Team Fight, Team Fight
If it aint broke dont fix it, right? In the first weekend of the split, Dignitas showed out when it came to team fighting, especially in their two victories. In these games, DIG’s team fighting looked nearly perfect. Every player was always in the right position, the team focused on the right enemies at the right time and objectives were secured soundly. Going into this weekend against tougher competition, DIG will want to continue playing to their strengths.
DIG can get this started by drafting a strong team fight orientated comp, especially a traditional comp which focuses around the hyper-carry Mid Laner and AD Carry. DIG can afford to play it slow and just focus heavily on the macro game. Going into a challenging matchup, a team may think that they need to experiment with their draft and game style in order to overcome their opponent. DIG must try and avoid doing this if they truly want to walk away from this weekend with a positive record. A lot of this will ultimately come down to the team’s veterans Joshua “Dardoch” Hartnett and Zaqueri “Aphromoo” Black. It will be their responsibility to keep their younger teammates Aaron “FakeGod” Lee, Toàn “Neo” Trần, and Yusui from folding under pressure.
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