League of Legends
H2k are back to their form
The first match was between the 3rd seed H2k and the 6th seed Giants Gaming. The Spaniards were complete underdogs in this game and it was clearly seen from games 1 to 3, as they got sweeped in each of them. It was hard to expect for Giants to do anything in the games that would bring them the win: H2k is better in the strategic aspect, make better picks & bans and are much better skill wise. Deathless H2k win in Game 1, another really clean sweep in Game 2 and a finisher in the last game, when they decided to make a roster swap with BetongJocke coming in for Loulex. Although, it was clearly seen that a newcomer needs time to adapt, it could be warning signs for the French jungler in the future.
This weekend, H2k will play against the 2nd seed Origen for a place in the finals and a plausible first place in the Summer split.
H2k walks home with clean series
Wounded Team Impulse takes down Team Dignitas
After the suspension of TiP's star midlaner XiaoWeiXiao, it was clearly seen that it was a big hit for the whole team. A lot of the bad decision making in their last Summer split games was also seen in their match against Team Dignitas in the Quarter-finals. Although TIP won 3:0, games were not as clean as H2k's in Europe. Game 1 was probably a great example of the situation TiP currently is: while having a 5k gold lead at 30 minutes, they made a really huge positioning mistake, which resulted in 1:5 in Dignitas' favor and baron. Nevertheless, TiP managed to come back and took the victory in this game. The following games were better controlled by TiP, however, the lack of decisiveness in Impulse members while taking objectives and pushing towards enemy nexus may fire back in their next match-up with CLG.
Team Impulse proceed to the semi-finals
Most dramatic Quarter-final series goes to: UOL vs ROC
On the next day in Europe, Unicorns of Love met Roccat, who got into playoffs in the very last games of the split. It was really hard to predict who will come out victorious in this series, with the roster change in UOL in the jungler position a possible red flag. However, it seemed that Unicorns changed from cheesing to playing right or at least it was a completely different team from what people were used to. In Game 1, we saw some interesting picks from the Roccat side, as they gave their opponents a Sivir composition, while taking Anivia for themselves to stop the engages. The idea was clever, however, PowerOfEvil’s Victor had too much damage to handle. Game 2 was almost the same, just this time Roccat decided to not invent compositions and took Victor for themselves. Unfortunately, it did not help them to get the win. Even though the game was really close, the positional mistakes in the baron pit gave another victory to the Unicorns. Next game, which was do or die for Roccat, was probably the best game of all. Even though PowerOfEvil stole the baron again, it was a strong win for the cats.
The first series to go further than three games, can we get more? Of course. The fourth game was probably the worst and the same time most dramatic game of all. As usual, Roccat got behind early, Unicorns secured objectives and then the poor decisions happened. At the 25 minute mark, Unicorns lost a big fight at dragon, which also cost them the baron. Nevertheless, Unicorns Of Love had more objectives secured by 40 minutes, which gave them a much bigger field where to make plays. When they could have ended the game though, they kept making crucial mistakes. They opened Roccat's base completely and even though baron and dragon were alive to make the cats having to decide what to defend, Unicorns forced taking the inhibitors and closing the game. However, their forcing was just walking around the inhibitor, which gave Roccat numerous opportunities to come back. They did not have any turrets left to defend and still managed to punish Unicorns for their mistakes and took a second win. The last game was really similar to the previous one - a lot of bad decisions from Unicorns in terms of closing the game, however as long as Roccat have Steve, who constantly loses the lane or just gets heavily behind, it's hard to dream about anything further.
In the next round, Unicorns will have a rematch with Fnatic, but it is highly unlikely that they will manage to win.
Unicorns Of Love managed to win series against Roccat 3-2
TSM defeats Gravity
The last quarter-final series was between the long time top NA team TSM and the newcomers from Gravity, who got known for Keane’s midlane picks. The last few weeks were a complete disaster for TSM, as they were losing to bottom tear teams or barely winning the games. As the players said, they needed time to return to their previous form, and the break between the regular split and the playoffs may have given them enough time for that. The pick and ban phase was much better from the TSM side as they finally understood what they need to do against Gravity – catch Altec. That is it. Altec is their mean damage dealer, as Keane is really low on damage % dealt to enemies amongst other midlaners. They took Olaf for Dyrus, which suited him well in the games as he kept chasing Altec all the time. Though TSM lost game two due to their decision making during teamfights, they secured the win in the series with a 3:1 score.
Their next opponent is the #1 team from the regular split Team Liquid, which will be a much harder opponent than Gravity with their 3 damage dealers instead of 1.
TSM defeats Gravity in the quarterfinals 3-1
Quarterfinals gave some clear victories and also some really dramatic series. Most of the victors were the favorites in their matchups, however they might not be in the next series, the semi-finals which will happen this weekend, starting on Saturday at 17:00 CET on lolesports.com.
images courtesy of lolesports
The first match was between the 3rd seed H2k and the 6th seed Giants Gaming. The Spaniards were complete underdogs in this game and it was clearly seen from games 1 to 3, as they got sweeped in each of them. It was hard to expect for Giants to do anything in the games that would bring them the win: H2k is better in the strategic aspect, make better picks & bans and are much better skill wise. Deathless H2k win in Game 1, another really clean sweep in Game 2 and a finisher in the last game, when they decided to make a roster swap with BetongJocke coming in for Loulex. Although, it was clearly seen that a newcomer needs time to adapt, it could be warning signs for the French jungler in the future.
This weekend, H2k will play against the 2nd seed Origen for a place in the finals and a plausible first place in the Summer split.
H2k walks home with clean series
Wounded Team Impulse takes down Team Dignitas
After the suspension of TiP's star midlaner XiaoWeiXiao, it was clearly seen that it was a big hit for the whole team. A lot of the bad decision making in their last Summer split games was also seen in their match against Team Dignitas in the Quarter-finals. Although TIP won 3:0, games were not as clean as H2k's in Europe. Game 1 was probably a great example of the situation TiP currently is: while having a 5k gold lead at 30 minutes, they made a really huge positioning mistake, which resulted in 1:5 in Dignitas' favor and baron. Nevertheless, TiP managed to come back and took the victory in this game. The following games were better controlled by TiP, however, the lack of decisiveness in Impulse members while taking objectives and pushing towards enemy nexus may fire back in their next match-up with CLG.
Team Impulse proceed to the semi-finals
Most dramatic Quarter-final series goes to: UOL vs ROC
On the next day in Europe, Unicorns of Love met Roccat, who got into playoffs in the very last games of the split. It was really hard to predict who will come out victorious in this series, with the roster change in UOL in the jungler position a possible red flag. However, it seemed that Unicorns changed from cheesing to playing right or at least it was a completely different team from what people were used to. In Game 1, we saw some interesting picks from the Roccat side, as they gave their opponents a Sivir composition, while taking Anivia for themselves to stop the engages. The idea was clever, however, PowerOfEvil’s Victor had too much damage to handle. Game 2 was almost the same, just this time Roccat decided to not invent compositions and took Victor for themselves. Unfortunately, it did not help them to get the win. Even though the game was really close, the positional mistakes in the baron pit gave another victory to the Unicorns. Next game, which was do or die for Roccat, was probably the best game of all. Even though PowerOfEvil stole the baron again, it was a strong win for the cats.
The first series to go further than three games, can we get more? Of course. The fourth game was probably the worst and the same time most dramatic game of all. As usual, Roccat got behind early, Unicorns secured objectives and then the poor decisions happened. At the 25 minute mark, Unicorns lost a big fight at dragon, which also cost them the baron. Nevertheless, Unicorns Of Love had more objectives secured by 40 minutes, which gave them a much bigger field where to make plays. When they could have ended the game though, they kept making crucial mistakes. They opened Roccat's base completely and even though baron and dragon were alive to make the cats having to decide what to defend, Unicorns forced taking the inhibitors and closing the game. However, their forcing was just walking around the inhibitor, which gave Roccat numerous opportunities to come back. They did not have any turrets left to defend and still managed to punish Unicorns for their mistakes and took a second win. The last game was really similar to the previous one - a lot of bad decisions from Unicorns in terms of closing the game, however as long as Roccat have Steve, who constantly loses the lane or just gets heavily behind, it's hard to dream about anything further.
In the next round, Unicorns will have a rematch with Fnatic, but it is highly unlikely that they will manage to win.
Unicorns Of Love managed to win series against Roccat 3-2
TSM defeats Gravity
The last quarter-final series was between the long time top NA team TSM and the newcomers from Gravity, who got known for Keane’s midlane picks. The last few weeks were a complete disaster for TSM, as they were losing to bottom tear teams or barely winning the games. As the players said, they needed time to return to their previous form, and the break between the regular split and the playoffs may have given them enough time for that. The pick and ban phase was much better from the TSM side as they finally understood what they need to do against Gravity – catch Altec. That is it. Altec is their mean damage dealer, as Keane is really low on damage % dealt to enemies amongst other midlaners. They took Olaf for Dyrus, which suited him well in the games as he kept chasing Altec all the time. Though TSM lost game two due to their decision making during teamfights, they secured the win in the series with a 3:1 score.
Their next opponent is the #1 team from the regular split Team Liquid, which will be a much harder opponent than Gravity with their 3 damage dealers instead of 1.
TSM defeats Gravity in the quarterfinals 3-1
Quarterfinals gave some clear victories and also some really dramatic series. Most of the victors were the favorites in their matchups, however they might not be in the next series, the semi-finals which will happen this weekend, starting on Saturday at 17:00 CET on lolesports.com.
images courtesy of lolesports
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