LCS: Week Eight Day One Recap

Counter Logic Gaming v OpTic Gaming

Counter Logic Gaming (“CLG”) kicked off the LCS week eight with a methodical win over OpTic Gaming (“OPT”). Their draft required a strong early game from the top side while their middle and bottom lanes scaled. CLG played it perfectly. Wiggily ganked for Darshan and got his top laner First Blood. He stuck around top and zoned Dhokla off his tower for multiple waves, putting him extremely far behind. A skirmish top resulted in a kill for Meteos and the Herald for Dhokla, but the Herald ended up being wasted. At 12 minutes CLG secured the First Tower bonus in that top lane.

In the mid game, both teams traded some towers and both teams got two Dragons each. Crucially though, CLG secured two Infernals on their already terrifying scaling composition over OPT's one. At 27 minutes OPT kicked into action. They caught out Biofrost and instantly turned to Baron. They burned it down with the man advantage, and though they lost Meteos for it, OPT had the buff. After killing PowerOfEvil, OPT destroyed multiple towers and looked as though they could come back.

CLG waited the buff out and pushed to take some towers of their own. At 41 later Dhokla was able to split push his way to a top lane Inhibitor while CLG pushed down his team's bottom Inhibitor. The game breaking moment came at 42 minutes, when Dhokla solo killed the Baron while CLG killed their second Elder. Unfortunately for Dhokla, CLG hard engaged and killed the four other OPT members. He tried to run down and backdoor CLG's base, but CLG was too fast and destroyed his Nexus at 43 minutes.

Team Liquid v Clutch Gaming

Team Liquid (“TL”) put on a clinic in their match versus Clutch Gaming (“CG”). They controlled almost every aspect of the game in their typical fashion and weathered CG's offensive pressure. CG tried to keep Doublelift's Vayne down by diving him twice under his tower. They did kill him, but gave over two kills in the first dive. After this TL reestablished control over the bottom lane and slayed two Dragons. In the late-early game Xmithie honed in on Damonte, ganking him to kill him twice.

TL amassed a massive lead at 19 minutes. Here, Huni died trying to dive Impact, TL demolished all three outer towers and they even killed a second Infernal Dragon. This gave them a significant lead and map pressure. Two post-20 team fights displayed TL's power. First, at 25 minutes, they Ace'd CG while only losing three of their own. Three minutes later a mid lane team fight resulted in a dominant four-for-one in the favor of TL, which led to TL taking their first Baron. The buff allowed TL to take down two Inhibitor tower, but no Inhibitors yet.

At 32 minutes TL killed their fifth Elemental Dragon and set themselves up for an easy Elder Dragon win condition. Soon after TL won another team fight two-for-one, and after killing Vulcan too, they secured their second Baron buff. TL immediately turned for the Elder Dragon as it spawned and CG was forced to respond. TL slaughtered CG here, killing all five members and only losing one. Doublelift was the only one to leave the Elder to push CG's base, and he destroyed all the structures by himself, including the Nexus at 38 minutes.

Cloud9 v Echo Fox

Echo Fox (“FOX”) took a much needed victory in the LCS week eight against Cloud9 (“C9”). FOX had a fantastic late game team and capitalized heavily off of C9 mistakes. C9 did control the early game though, as they secured First Blood for Svenskeren in a jungle invade. Svenskeren then ganked the bottom lane, getting two kills and the First Tower bonus for his team. All the while C9 slayed three Elemental Dragons and the Rift Herald.

Then disaster struck. Zeyzal and Sneaky made a huge positional error and baited his team to fighting a terrible fight. FOX picked up four kills here and the Baron buff too. This is where C9 completely threw the game. FOX now had the momentum, and with their late game carries coming online, C9 barely had a chance. FOX destroyed multiple towers in the bottom and middle lanes, but C9 did managed to kill two FOX members on the retreat. C9 also found a great engage to a team fight, where they killed two members for none, but it was too late at this point.

At 30 minutes the Baron respawned and the teams had their eyes on it. In a fight for control over it, a team fight erupted around the pit. FOX's superior team fighting composition came out on top and FOX killed two C9 members. They secured their second Baron buff and killed Svenskeren, who was looking for the steal. Next, FOX grouped top and began their push.  They pushed down their opponents' Inhibitor and continued on until C9 desperately tried one more engage. Fenix obliterated C9, getting a Quadra Kill. FOX Ace'd C9 and finished the upset by taking their Nexus at 34 minutes.

Golden Guardians v Team SoloMid

Team SoloMid (“TSM”) defeated Golden Guardians (“GGS”) in a very clean game. They showed up early and never gave GGS a chance to breathe. Akaadian started it off by killing Froggen for First Blood in the mid lane. Shortly after Smoothie killed Olleh, winning the two-versus-two in the bottom lane. This advantage netted TSM an early Infernal Dragon too. They blew open the bottom lane by four-man diving it, getting two kills and securing the First Tower bonus there. TSM was on a rampage and wouldn't be stopped.

TSM pushed their lead by next taking more neutral objectives. They slayed a second Infernal Dragon and the Rift Herald, and it helped them to demolish all the outer towers by 15 minutes. When the third Infernal Dragon spawned, both teams immediately focused on it. GGS couldn't afford to give it over to TSM and forced a team fight. It ended up being a close fight but TSM came out on top with three kills and the third Infernal.

At 21 minutes TSM destroyed the middle inner tower and GGS attempted to engage a fight. Contractz was killed quickly and TSM re-engaged the fight to pick up three more kills. With this overwhelming advantage TSM easily secured the Baron buff and began their push. First they went bottom, taking two towers and the Inhibitor in that lane with no contest. Then they rotated to the middle lane to do the same. GGS now tried to mount a defense, but couldn't withstand the power of a team with over a 12k gold lead. Four GGS members fell and TSM smashed through GGS's base to take their Nexus at a fast 26 minutes.

100 Thieves v FlyQuest

FlyQuest (“FLY”) closed out the end of the first day of the LCS week eight with a convincing win over 100 Thieves (“100T”). They held a firm grip on the game since the beginning and closed it out in a rather clean fashion. A level one fight between the bottom lane duos in the river resulted in FLY getting First Blood on Aphromoo. A few minutes later a two-versus-two skirmish in the middle lane was narrowly won by 100T, with AnDa securing a kill on Santorin. FLY ramped up the tempo from here, first slaying a Mountain Dragon then starting a team fight in 100T's jungle, where they found two more kills.

FLY's bottom lane duo obtained the First Tower bonus at 14 minutes and were very strong. The game slowed down for a bit here in terms of kills, but FLY was on top of every neutral objective. They slayed two Dragons and a Rift Herald in the proceeding minutes. The game blew wide open for FLY at 28 minutes, when they won a team fight two-for-zero and secured the Baron.

100T's structures fell swiftly against the might of the Baron buff. Though a pick onto JayJ stalled the FLY siege, FLY still managed to destroy all three Inhibitors by 32 minutes. At this point 100T was doomed. As double stacked waves of Super Minions marched into their base, they lost both Nexus Towers and had to fight. They tried, but only lost more members. FLY killed three before finishing the game at 34 minutes.