The 2021 LCS Summer Season starts Friday, June 4, with Team Liquid taking on TSM as the first match. The format is a little different this year. The 10 teams will play in a triple round-robin across nine weeks. The top eight teams proceed to playoffs. Keep in mind, their Spring Season records carry over into Summer Season. Everyone starts where they left off, so Team Liquid comes in at second place.
Team Liquid starts Summer Season in second place.
Team Liquid’s Spring Season truly sets them up for success, finishing one win behind Cloud9. Since eight teams qualify for playoffs, something would have to go terribly wrong for TL to miss. Having 27 matches does allow for enough losses to offset Spring Season wins, but TL should not come close. This is a championship team with a title in their sights.
Only one win (with a substitute jungler) separated TL from the Mid Season Showdown title. Cloud9 clutched it, and went on to play at Riot’s Mid Season Invitational for the past month. TL proved they were decisively better than TSM, taking both series 3-1.
Beyond C9 and TSM, 100 Thieves was the only team with a major roster upgrade in the mid-season. However, their issues run much deeper than one role. Evil Geniuses brought up a raw bot lane talent, so there’s no way to know how that will turn out. FlyQuest and Golden Guardians tweaked their rosters, but they should not suddenly be in the title running. CLG is a big question mark. They had a rough start to the split, but once the main roster got rolling they had about a 50 percent win rate. That is usually good enough to make playoffs. Still, they should be at least one tier below TL.
Here is the weekly schedule for Team Liquid’s 2021 Summer Season:
| Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | |
| Week 1 | TSM | CLG | C9 |
| Week 2 | DIG | EG | IMT |
| Week 3 | FLY | GG | 100 |
| Week 4 | EG | CLG | TSM |
| Week 5 | 100 | C9 | FLY |
| Week 6 | DIG | IMT | GG |
| Week 7 | CLG | 100 | TSM |
| Week 8 | FLY | DIG | GG |
| Week 9 | IMT | EG | C9 |
Weeks 1, 4 and 7 look like they might be the most difficult. Oddly enough, all three of those weeks include matches versus CLG and TSM. Weeks 6 and 8 look like the easiest. Both of these weeks feature games against DIG and GG.
Team Liquid should have a better showing now that Alphari and Santorin have had time to warm up to the team. Their summer win rate should increase to roughly 80 percent, winning four out of five. That would mean TL would secure four 3-0 weeks and five 2-1 weeks. This is absolutely doable for the veteran squad, even through multiple metas and at least two new champions.
Considering the inconsistencies Cloud9 showed at MSI, Team Liquid can absolutely finish first in the regular Summer Season. Every member should be in 1st or 2nd All-Pro team, except Tactical. He could squeeze in third with a good showing. Alphari or CoreJJ would easily win MVP for the split, and Team Liquid would move into playoffs as the favorite. From there, they make it to another final versus Cloud9 and whoever shows up better on the day takes the title–just like Spring Season. The remaining teams would battle it out for the third seed at Worlds.
Cover image from LoL Esports Flickr
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