A Brief Look Back at Week 7
Week 7 could have let FlyQuest solidify themselves as the clear number two team in the LCS, but they dropped the ball. Their early game looked sloppy. Lee” IgNar” Dong-geun got caught out early on an invade against EG, giving Bae “Bang” Jun-sik first blood. And in the TSM game, Joshua “Dardoch” Hartnett ran roughshod over Lucas “Santorin” Tao Kilmer Larsen in the jungle. In both games, FlyQuest found themselves at a disadvantage and played from behind. They were never quite able to turn the games around, though they still tried to make proactive plays.
In the game versus TSM, FlyQuest were able to turn what looked like a disaster of a fight at the first mountain drake into two kills and their first dragon of the game. They used the pressure gained from the fight to help Omran “V1per” Shoura get first turret in botlane. This stabilized the game, but it wasn’t enough. Good vision and late-game macro don’t matter when one member of TSM can occupy four of your members in a teamfight.
Heading into Week 8
Vs. IMT (7-7)
Immortals lost to 100T on Sunday, but then beat Team Liquid on Monday Night League in convincing fashion. On Saturday, the team looked lost, and Jérémy “Eika” Valdenaire got smashed by Tommy “Ryoma” Le. But on Sunday, the team looked far more coordinated and aggressive, with both Paul “Soaz” Boyer and Eika putting on solid laning performances. Depending on which version of IMT shows up on stage in Week 8, the matchup could look very different.
If the uncoordinated version of IMT shows up, FlyQuest will be able to easily out-macro them, choking them out of objectives with well-placed vision in the river before picking a teamfight that will end the game. If the coordinated version of IMT shows up, then it’s a whole different ballgame, which will be decided by which team can get an early advantage in lane. On form, IMT seem to have just a good macro, shotcalling and teamfighting as FlyQue, but it’s impossible to tell which team will show up.
This is what makes analyzing a team like IMT so frustrating; the stats their games produce mean nothing, because they’re produced from such high-variance games. It’s not that they lie, necessarily. It’s that they don’t tell the whole story. Which at this point is a long shaggy dog joke involving backdoors, dragon fights, and mistimed engages.
Matchup to Watch: Jungle.
Jake “Xmithie” Puchero is one of the most cerebral junglers in the game, and watching him path and track the other jungler is impressive. After Santorin’s performance against Dardoch on Sunday, he’ll be looking to prove himself again, and this is the place to do it. If he’s able to outjungle Xmithie, FlyQuest will be in good shape exiting early game as they push towards victory.
Prediction: FlyQuest should win this, but they should have won against EG, too, so who knows?
Vs. 100T (7-7)
100T have won 4 of their last 5, and have looked decent doing it. They’ve won the games they should have won (against EG, GG, and Dig) and went 1-1 in the games against teams who’ve been hanging around at the top of the standings (IMT and TL). Kim “Ssumday” Chan-ho has been playing out of his mind, warping games so that teams have to play to shut him down. If they don’t, he will put the rest of the team on his back and carry them to victory.
Sometimes, he needs to. The rest of 100T’s laners rank in the bottom half of the league for early game stats (CSD@10, XPD@10, GD@10) on Oracle’s Elixir, and have been for most of the split. There have been bright spots (Ryoma’s play against IMT this past weekend comes to mind), but for the most part, this is the Ssumday show.
That style could actually be a problem for FlyQuest. V1per can play a good weakside, but unless he gets his signature Riven, he can’t take over a lane. And if a team doesn’t shut Ssumday down, he will warp the game into 100T’s favor. Think about how Sergen “Brokenblade” Çelik was able to launch himself into FlyQuest’s backline on Sunday; his presence swung fights into TSM’s favor, and he didn’t have as much advantage as Ssumday usually gleans from his opponents. This could be a rough one.
Matchup to Watch: Top.
This is the Ssumday show. V1per has to prove he’s LCS talent and hold his own against Ssumday, or FlyQuest’s chances of winning go down quite a bit.
Prediction: 100T win. FlyQuest won’t be able to do enough to shut Ssumday down.
What are your predictions for Week Eight? Tell Richard what you think @Imp_Richard
All images courtesy of LoL Esports Flickr
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