Evil Geniuses had one of the easiest LCS weeks one could possibly ask for. On Friday they played Flyquest, who is tied for eighth with CLG who they played on Saturday. On Sunday, EG played the Golden Guardians who are tenth. So does this week matter too much? Well, kinda.
EG is Catching Up:
One can easily discredit all of the wins this week. But what matters from a week like this is that EG take the easy wins and use them to bolster their standings. In this week alone, EG caught up two games on TL and one on C9. This means that they are only one game behind TL and two behind C9. If EG break into that top four or three, it will help a lot come playoff time.
Another thing EG made clear is that while they care about the regular season, this is a team-building towards playoffs. Travis Gafford had a great interview with head coach Peter Dun. In it, he claimed that a lot of the moves made so far were to make them a stronger team come playoff time. Danny was an example of this. What team trying to get first in the regular season would put in an Amateur player? None would, but he knew come playoff time he would be a vastly better player. Heck, Danny already is vastly better than where he started.
The point of all of this is that teams need to watch out. EG is a serious contender now. One small thing that stood out was even on the caster desk the mood about EG changed this last week. They are on a five-game winning streak and they were including them in discussions about who was the best with C9 and TL.
The Jungle Situation:
Fans finally got to see Svenskeren this weekend and they should be happy they did. Throughout the entire coverage of EG in the Spring and Summer thus far, articles written by TGH members (including this one) have been very critical of him. This is a former MVP Jungler who just seemed to have little impact in most games. Then to add to the drama, Contractz was promoted for a game from Academy to throw off TSM and it worked REALLY well. He dominated the rift with a 93% KP and showed that he deserves to be on some starting roster.
So what does EG do? Svenskeren was struggling and Contractz showed up great. Well, for Svenskeren the answer was simple, smurf and show he deserves the spot. With a combined 16/5/24 KDA on aggressive champions, Svenskeren showed the potential everyone knew he had. Frankly, he was a Player of the Week contender. And sure, this was against weaker teams, but what matters here is how he played. Svenskeren moved to the offensive locking in Viego and Diana. This allowed him to engage with his team while still doing dirty damage in teamfights.
While it was great to see Svenskeren pop off so much, it does open the question of where this leaves EG in terms of Junglers? The answer right now, at least how the EG staff is presenting it, is this; Svenskeren is the starting Jungler, but Contractz will be swapped in for certain matchups due to different play styles and champ pools. EG hopes this will benefit them the most in BO5s aka playoffs. If this is the plan, well, it sounds good.
IgNar Appreciation Post:
One thing that has been lacking in coverage of EG is IgNar. IgNar was put in an odd spot during the Spring Split with an ADC that limited his ability to play the way he wanted. And due to such, he was often considered to be “worse” than he was on Flyquest last year. This split though, he has played really great and thusly deserves recognition.
IgNar has some of the best laning stats in the LCS for support, but that is most certainly boosted by the fasting Senna games. Despite those, his KDA is the third-best for supports and his WPM is third as well. All while having good Damage stats, which does matter for Supports. That extra 100 damage could be the difference between winning and losing fights.
Stats aside, this week he straight up smurfed and was the key reason they beat GG, despite Jiizuke’s attempts at throwing. With a 1/2/16 performance on Naut, he consistently picked good targets with his Q and R allowing EG to engage. In the FLY game he went deathless going 0/0/10 on Thresh, allowing Danny to look big on Aphelios. Finally, versus CLG, he went deathless again, this time on Braum going 0/0/12.
IgNar is still a great support and it’s not said enough. Plus, he is one of the nicest people in the LCS so that’s a plus.
TLDR:
EG had a freelo week, but the wins allowed certain players to stand out more than normal. Sure, we could talk about Jiizuke straight up trolling that Lee Sin game, but it seems more productive to highlight the good parts than beating a dead horse. EG has a hard week coming up with IMT, 100T and C9. A 2-1 week out of this would be really big for keeping that top team race going.
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