Immortals LCS Week 4 Review and Week 5 Preview

Week 4 of the LCS Spring Split saw Immortals go 1-1. They secured a solid win over Team Liquid, followed by a disappointing loss to Evil Geniuses. The 1-1 week keeps them tied for second place, now with FlyQuest, at a 5-3 record. To finish the first round robin, Immortals will play Dignitas and Cloud9 in Week 5.

Reviewing Week 4

Team Liquid: 2-4, 7th place (tied)

In their match versus TL, IMT opted into a scaling composition: Gangplank, Sejuani, Cassio, Ezreal and Nautilus. A jet-lagged Broxah gave over First Blood at 3 minutes, trying to invade IMT’s jungle. From there, Xmithie and Eika prioritized warding TL’s jungle to track Broxah. IMT was able to secure first Herald, immediately dropping it top. TL responded with first Dragon. Just before 11 minutes, TL’s bottom lane rotated to catch out Xmithie. He blew Flash, but circled back around with IMT’s bottom lane to burst Doublelift before CoreJJ’s Taric ultimate could fully channel. This early action netted IMT three turret plates in top and bottom lane.

Xmithie secured the second Dragon, before rotating top-side to destroy the turret and kill Impact. He also took the second Herald just before 16 minutes, which he dropped mid. The bottom laners on both teams rotated mid, while sOAZ went bot to destroy the tower. TL ceded bot-side control in favor of top-side, so IMT took the third Dragon, the tier one mid turret and the tier two bot turret by 20 minutes. Jensen pushed for IMT’s tier two top turret.

Maintaining complete bottom lane control, IMT caught Impact out, killed him and rotated mid to destroy the tier two turret. With all of the pressure pushing towards TL, IMT moved towards Baron. When TL contested, they turned and killed Doublelift and CoreJJ, while losing Hakuho.

Afterwards, TL traded the fourth Dragon and pushing waves for Baron. From there, IMT’s siege was pretty clean. Broxah went for a last-ditch Lee Sin play that backfired and got Doublelift killed again. They broke the mid and bot inhibitors, before retreating and securing the fifth Dragon. IMT took Baron number two without losing any members, pushed mid and won the game.

Player of the Match: Xmithie

IMT’s jungler played the early game about as perfectly as he could. The pathing, warding and ganking set IMT up for a straightforward game. Catching out Broxah, Doublelift and Impact at key moments allowed IMT to get the right pressure to take objectives with ease. His Demolish rune on Sejuani aided in taking turrets very fast. Xmithie seemed to be the player keeping the pressure on TL throughout the game.

Evil Geniuses: 2-4, 7th place

IMT opted for another scaling composition versus Evil Geniuses in Week 4. They chose Ornn, Rek’Sai, Corki, Ezreal and Braum. However, EG did not opt into scaling like TL. They went for early game dominance with Renekton, Lee Sin, Leblanc, Lucian and Yuumi. The broadcast was quick to criticize the Braum pick in response to Yuumi. Nautilus and Leona were banned, so there were not many meta all-in supports available. Particularly for Hakuho, the Braum seemed like it had too little influence on the laning phase to punish the first-pick Yuumi.

The game started with a delayed invade on EG’s red side. Xmithie, Altec and Hakuho zoned Svenskeren away from the red buff, but Jiizuke was able to join the fray and kill both Xmithie and Hakuho. A double kill on the Leblanc was a pretty poor start for IMT. EG used the early pressure to take the first Dragon and gain a 1,000 gold lead by 7 minutes. Around 8 minutes, Jiizuke hard pressured Eika, even Flashing to dive, but he missed some abilities and ended up suiciding, giving Xmithie the kill. Svenskeren was still able to secure the second Dragon.

Just past 12 minutes, EG’s bottom lane was pressuring IMT’s out of the lane, and Zeyzal even secured a kill on Altec under the turret. Afterwards, they destroyed the turret, while Xmithie and Eika killed the Rift Herald and dropped it top lane. However, turret plates had already fallen. Another aggressive Flash play from Jiizuke resulted in Altec and Xmithie dying again in top lane and all other IMT barely surviving the dive. With complete vision control in the river, EG took their third Dragon at 17 minutes.

Near 20 minutes, most members of both teams stacked mid, with EG pressuring the turret. Svenskeren took the Rift Herald while IMT defended. He dropped it mid and took down the last outer turret, growing EG’s lead to 3,500 gold. The two teams started wrestling over mid lane and bottom river control, as EG was setting up for Infernal Dragon Soul. Jiizuke split-pushed bottom lane, while everyone else grouped mid. Eventually, IMT backed off of Dragon to clear waves and EG secured the Soul.

Eika and sOAZ attempted to dive Kumo’s Rekenton in bottom lane, but failed. Meanwhile, EG took top and mid tier two turrets. At 29 minutes, IMT successfully shut down Bang’s Lucian near the Baron pit. They immediately made a beeline to the Elder Dragon, where EG slaughtered them. Aided by Zeyal’s Yuumi, Jiizuke, Svenskeren and mostly Kumo dove onto IMT’s carries and deleted them. EG knocked down the mid inhibitor, before turning and securing Elder Drake. They also reset and took Baron with little contest. From there, EG pushed top and mid and destroyed the Nexus around 34 minutes.

Player of the Match: Eika

Mostly by process of elimination, Eika had the best game on IMT. His Corki held up pretty well in laning phase, despite Jiizuke starting the game with a double kill. He only died once, and kept his gold pretty close to Jiizuke’s. He did not get to do much more than farming waves, because the rest of the team collapsed around him. In hindsight, the Corki last pick probably should have been something with a little more early presence, but Eika did okay with what he was given.

Previewing Week 5

Dignitas: 4-4, 4th place (tied)

Dignitas has leveled out as a middle of the pack team since their 2-0 Week 1. They have wins over 100 Thieves, CLG, EG and TL. However, they have lost to Cloud9, FlyQuest, Golden Guardians and TSM. DIG seems interested in the Miss Fortune-Leona bottom lane with scaling solo lanes. They did find success with the Soraka top-Ornn mid combo. Mid-jungle feels inflexible in draft for DIG, so IMT should take advantage of that. Rumble, Soraka, Ornn, Yuumi and Lucian will be pick or ban in this draft, but IMT should give Eika or Xmithie counter picks, if possible.

Player to Watch: Xmithie

In game, IMT should try to reproduce their strategy versus TL. Put Xmithie on tracker duty, and give Eika, sOAZ and Hakuho the freedom to roam and support against any of Grig’s advances. IMT will probably keep pressure in the solo lanes, which opens up opportunities to invade the jungle for vision, which leads to better objective control. DIG will most likely play to outscale in the solo lanes, so Xmithie needs to punish that with strong map control.

Prediction – #IMTWIN – Immortals feels more consistent than DIG. Barring another S-tier draft, like DIG had versus 100 Thieves, IMT should be able to control this game. Xmithie has been a greater asset to IMT than Grig has to DIG, and IMT’s laners have shown greater flexibility in the draft and on the Rift. 

Cloud9: 8-0, 1st place

Everyone has been getting stomped by Cloud9. Expect nothing different in this match. IMT’s has excelled in early game vision and objective control, but not necessarily huge gold leads. It is possible that IMT sees C9’s plays more in advance than most teams, but actually reacting and outplaying is a whole different ball game. Expect dives in top lane and mid lane against sOAZ and Eika, with Xmithie trying to pick up the pieces.

Player to Watch: Altec

IMT played C9 in Week 2. It was a stomp, and Altec’s Cassiopeia got dove several times. That pick, the Karma top, and the Gragas-Yasuo mid lane did not really pan out for IMT. Hopefully their draft is more standard this time around. Altec has shown he can carry when given enough time to scale, like their matches versus TSM and CLG. If he can farm safely while the rest of the map is on fire, then maybe IMT has some chance of winning.

Prediction – #C9WIN – No one is betting against C9 in Week 5, especially not in this match. IMT is probably in for a rough one, but hopefully a bit less than their first meet-up. 

CREDITS

Images from LoL Esports Flickr.

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