Week five is now done and dusted. The league is past the half-way mark, but the playoff picture is as unclear as ever. With a lot of upsets once again, the LEC is giving writers a hard time when it comes to predicting the next results. MAD Lions are even worse. They won against G2 but lost against Misfits. Now both of these teams are tied for first place, so looking at this year´s results alone, this week´s results seem reasonable. However, the way in which both of the games transpired was utterly strange. Subsequently, this author´s rating of the MAD Lions has dropped a wee bit. Check out this article to see where our LEC analysts rank them after week five.
MAD vs MSF draft
Coming into Week 5 this matchup between the two successful rookie teams received quite a bit of attention. Misfits took the league by storm with strong mid-jungle synergy and good team cohesion. MAD Lions impressed with mid-game macro and strong teamfighting. Expectations were that MAD would need to resist the early-game onslaught from Misfits to win through teamfights later on in the game. Sadly, they got rolled. This game came down to a very strong topside focus from Misfits MVP candidate Razork. After an overextension from Humanoid and a clean dive in toplane Misfits quickly sat at 2-0. While Humanoid´s Flash was still on cooldown, Razork revisited midlane and found another successful gank.
Great synergy between Razork and Febiven
Misfits established strong control over the topside of the map and ran away with the early game. At 12 minutes the gold-lead sat at an overwhelming 3,000 Gold already.
Misfits continued with their relentless aggression and quickly knocked down all six outer turrets. In most games, the leading team has to slow down at this point as it becomes too much of a risk to push further. With Misfits´ plethora of CC and tankiness, they ignored this barrier of the game and broke the base right as Baron spawned.
The ensuing fight around Baron presented a good opportunity for a last-ditch effort for MAD. Misfits took the gamble and went for the 22-minute Baron. Unfortunately for MAD, Razork was able to secure the objective and hammer in the final nail in the coffin. Shortly thereafter Misfits ended the game.
Razork once again stood out. His Sejuani was able to overpower all of MAD´s topside. Even after his job was mostly done and his laners were fed enough to carry him to victory, Razork remained crisp and clutch. He secured the Baron and landed many crucial ultimates . Especially remarkable were his Glacial Prisons that were chained perfectly into prior crowd-control from Febiven or Dan Dan.
MAD vs G2 draft
What a game this was. If you missed this game, go back and watch it. Certainly not the highest level of League of Legends ever displayed, but very enjoyable to watch. MAD Lions came in with another very different approach to draft. From a Gankplank first pick against to a LB first-pick against G2. But even more interesting was the first showing of Kalista-Taric, a bot lane duo that has risen in popularity in recent weeks. After the game on Friday, MAD fans had to be very worried when they saw the Sejuani in Jankos´ hands.
The game started in a similar fashion to the game against Misfits. Looking ahead, these early deficits might become a big problem for MAD the later the split goes. G2 found success in bot lane and secured first blood for Caps´ MF.
The first big fight occurred in the top side of the river when the first Rift Herald spawned. Even though MAD got priority and almost got away with the Objective, G2 turned the tides when Mikyx found an engagement on MAD´s midlaner. Humanoid survived but couldn´t participate in the fight anymore. The ensuing skirmish ended with G2 securing some kills. To add insult to injury, Caps also stole the Rift Herald with a lucky auto-attack. All in all, G2 jumped off to a 3000 Gold lead at 13 minutes.
An overconfident engage for G2 gave MAD a chance back into the game. In contrast to Misfits, G2 was not able to snowball their lead significantly. Humanoid once again got caught multiple times, but his more mobile champ allowed him to get away almost every time. Most of the early kills also went to his pocket, which gave MAD a lot of pressure even though they were still trailing in Gold.
Cosmic Radiance turns the fight
The deciding fight occurred after G2 finally killed Humanoid. Even though G2 had a numbers advantage, as you can see in the picture all of the MAD Lions members stood on top of each other. Hence the Cosmic radiance affected everyone. The fight was a landslide victory for MAD who immediately turned to take Baron.
Afterward, MAD Lions displayed a very good understanding of how to close games. They quickly seized control of the game and pushed down the enemy base effectively. G2 had no chance in teamfights anymore and MAD closed out the game in 33 minutes.
This was a very difficult decision. Humanoid was able to survive multiple attempts to catch him. On the other hand, he also lost his life prior to the deciding fight of the game and got into dicey situations time and time again.
Carzzy played a very good game on Kalista.
Ultimately
Kaiser
showed his prowess on Taric. Cosmic Radiance turned the teamfights. On top of that he also landed some sweet Dazzles.
MAD Lions vs Vitality 28.02.2020 9pm CETEvery game matters. Therefore, it would be very detrimental for MAD to overlook this first match of week six. Vitality is coming off their first victory this year. Steeelback did resuscitate this team. Even though they are still playing without their starting midlaner Milica, the team has slowly gotten better. Even then, looking at the standings it is an absolute must-win match for the rookie squad
Ultimately MAD will win this match.
Courtesy of LoL Esports flickr
But not in too convincing fashion. MAD´s early game stats are actually quite problematic as they are on average almost 1000 gold behind at 15 minutes. Early game deficiencies are quite dangerous against weaker teams.
Especially with one more week of practice for Steeelback Vitality, if they get off to a lead, MAD will struggle to come back. Superior teamfighting will be the deciding factor in this matchup. Another chance for Carzzy to vie for the trophy he wants to earn: Rookie of the split.
This game could potentially be the most important match for the MAD Lions. They are sitting at one more win than their opponents Excel. But the last time the two teams met Mickey and Caedrel demolished their counterparts and lead Excel to a convincing victory. Thus, this game becomes twice as important for MAD´s playoff aspirations. If they lose here, they need to hope to not be tied with Excel at the end of the split. A 0-2 in the head-to-head against one of their direct contenders would be worrying.
Courtesy of LoL Esports flickr
Even though Excel has one more loss to their name their early game stats look significantly better than MAD´s. The last two games MAD played left quite a lot to be desired. Shadow and Humanoid need to step up in Week six to not once again get humiliated by the opposing duo. The biggest difference between the Misfits and the G2 game was Humanoids ability to escape attacks. For MAD to succeed in this pivotal match-up Humanoid needs to show Mickey why “EU mids” are a thing.
This is another very difficult game to predict. Judging from the last week of play Excel should actually be favoured in this matchup. Therefore, this author will predict an XL win. The match-up is on a knife´s edge though and might be decided in draft-phase. Mac has the opportunity to show his worth once again. Going up against the most accomplished coaches in European history.
All pictures are courtesy of LOL Esports.
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