The fourth week of the North American League Championship Series, or LCS, had Team Liquid up against the last place Counter Logic Gaming, and Immortals who looked as if they were gaining confidence in recent weeks. This is the Team Liquid LCS Week 4 Recap.
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This game gave the league their first look at how Mads “Broxah“ Brock-Pedersen might fit into the synergy for Team Liquid. After Broxah was separated from the team during the start of the season due to visa issues, he joined the team for the first time on stage this week. This match was against Immortals of all teams, who currently house the former TL Jungler. So it was a grudge match of the ex vs the current. This time though, Xmithie stole the show.
The quick stats: 11 kills to IMT, 1 to TL. 10 turrets go to IMT, 3 to TL. IMT claimed three dragons as Team Liquid got two. The game ended before either team could claim a soul. IMT also get their hands on two Baron buffs.
The game started to break open when Broxah gave up an early kill on a solo invade, caught by the enemy jungler Xmithie and Hakuho. This is oddly similar to how Shernfire died in their first game last week, caught by the Jungler and Support of the enemy team. From here, though TL got the first drake, they slowly started to lose out over the map in small ways, noticeably through vision.
IMT got far enough ahead where Team Liquid did not even want to fight against them. TL’s champions would not be able to do enough damage to out do IMT’s. Team Liquid opted to leave Jensen in the sidewaves to pick up waves. TL conceded objectives while trying any way to claw back into the game. Impact got caught out in another sidewave and IMT spun that catch into a Baron after a few minutes.
Taking a look at the Team’s Gold advantage chart, it shows us that this game was a slow bleed of Team Liquid. Although Team Liquid at a later point in the game traded a Baron for their second drake, it was not enough.
Overall, this was a sloppy game played by Team Liquid, full of mistakes and miscommunications. There was a low scrim time with Broxah and this is his first on-stage game with Team Liquid, which could be to blame for this. Doublelift’s Kalista was not able to output the damage needed to be an impact this game. Nor was Impact’s performance anything to write home about.
Taking a look at the composition and draft, Doublelift is still not playing traditional meta ADCs. However, this game/draft DL was likely forced on Kalista due to the amount of ADC bans during the draft phase. Kalista in this composition likely was meant to be able to bring a constant source of damage, combined with her slow and ultimate. The composition was meant to be a strong 5 v 5 composition, featuring hard crowd control brought by Taric and Ornn. Taric also was meant to bring a huge boon with his ultimate, invulnerability.
From ganks, map movement, counter vision, objective control, to teamfights and making sure key members were shut down during fights, Xmithie was a wonderful proponent of making sure Team Liquid was down and stayed down.
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This game feels as if CLG got absolutely run over all over the map. Individually and as a team, Team Liquid seemed to finally show up in force this game. Though TL lost the first blood top lane, they responded with a dragon just as fast.
The quick stats: 15 kills to TL, 1 to CLG. 9 Towers for TL, a stark zero for CLG. One drake for TL, and two drakes for CLG. Finally, TL was able to claim one Baron for themselves.
CLG pull back with a few objectives – they aren’t completely starved out, like Team Liquid themselves would be in games prior. But with every teamfight that TL had, Liquid slowly pulled ahead more and more.
Team Liquid used Rift Herald to break open the bot lane wide open. The CS differential at around 13 minutes showed just how much of a powerhouse Doublelift could be when he was given the resources. From there, Team Liquid rotate, broke mid and continued to make smart macro plays around the map.
This is the return to form that most fans wanted to see from the start from Team Liquid. Doublelift powering through other ADCs and showing why he can be seen as one of the best ADCs in NA. Recently he has not been up to form so it is refreshing to see a game like this. Even though he was not on a commonly seen ADC, he fits into the comp of lockdown.
Looking at the draft, TL drafts a strong teamfight composition again. This time, however, they did not fall behind too much in the early game. This allowed them to bring out their mid game strengths as they snowball. Team Liquid was then able to confidently play out teamfights, with the strength of their composition to assist them in engage, lockdown, and peel for their damage sources.
This was the fastest game in the Spring Split at 23:26.
Player of the Match: TL CoreJJ
It was tough to pick an MVP for this game. One because the game was so short, and two because this was really a concerted effort from TL. But if this was a concert, then CoreJJ is the maestro. From saving Doublelift multiple times, allowing him to give more DPS, to making plays with Tahm Kench ultimate, CoreJJ shined just a tad brighter this game.
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Evil Geniuses, while they have the same Win Loss as Team Liquid, managed to beat down teams that Team Liquid have lost to. If Svenskeren, Jiizuke, or Bang get going, it could spell an early end loss for TL. Focus point this game would be to look at the bot lane for Team Liquid and push an advantage through that lane.
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Dignitas shot out to a strong start at the start of the season. After stumbling over the last few games, doubts about their player’s abilities in the roles have started to spring up. If Team Liquid can play like they did against CLG, and get Doublelift on a solid ADC, this rematch should be a breeze for Team Liquid.
Find more Team Liquid and LCS content here.
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