LCS Recap for Week 2. 100 Thieves forget how to draft, Dignitas show they deserve respect, and Golden Guardians pick up their second win in a 56-minute game. Let’s take a deeper look into how all these things ended up happening and what it means for the league as a whole.
100 Thieves went into week 3 tied for first and a good chance to stay that way if not take sole ownership. What ended up happening was far from that. 100 Thieves did manage to win their first game of the week against Immortals but fell apart after that losing to both TSM and Golden Guardians. While losing to TSM isn’t the end of the world as TSM has proved they are a good team, dropping a game to Golden Guardians is very worrisome. The sad part is I don’t even really blame the players that much for the losses.
Their game against TSM was simply lost in the draft. Their comp had almost no synergy and just looked off. Not only was the synergy bad it wasn’t really what we normally see from 100 Thieves. That game went about as expected and 100 Thieves got stomped.
Next up were the Golden Guardians and a good chance for 100 Thieves to bounce back and quickly right the ship, well that didn’t happen. While the draft was better against GG it was still GG favored and not what we would normally see out of 100 Thieves. It was a more engage-heavy late-game comp that GG simply drafted around. By drafting kiting champions such as Janna and Sivir GG were able to negate what 100 Thieves comp wanted to do. Now obviously the players are still partly to blame but the drafts were just questionable for both games and it worries me going forward.
Last week Digintas were able to go 3-0 but against two lower of the table teams and an EG who looked to be falling a little. This weak they boucned back and proved they belong in the talks for palyoffs and maybe even top 4. Their first game of the week was aginst FlyQuest and Dig did well to control pretty much the whole game and look like the better team through and through. Their second game however was a little rough but to be fair to Dig it was up against the team sitting in ownership of first place Cloud9.
After the C9 stomp I can assume I wasn’t the only one who assumed TSM would likely do the same to Dig but boy was I wrong. The early game was very back and fourth with Dig maybe having a slight advantage but nothing too crazy. Dig continued good mid-game calling and managed to catch TSM in an attempted baron sneak and essentially won the game then and there. It almost felt TSM tilted after that baron play but Dignitas did a good job to play calming and intelligently to cruise to the victory putting them tied for 2nd with both TSM and 100 Thieves.
Finally, we come back to the Golden Guardians win. While I still don’t think 100 Thieves played their best or drafted the best GG still managed to win the game. By no means was the game perfect in any way with GG needing 56 minutes like 4 barons and 3 elders but it did show improvement for the team. GG were able to play the comp the way it was meant to be played and ended up getting their second win of the season so far.
With the slight improvement, we saw it gives me hope that this rebuilding team might actually be put to some good. It shouldn’t be forgotten no one really expected this team to do anything and was seen as simply giving these players a chance to grow and get some LCS experience in the hopes of developing them as individuals. Hopefully, we continue to see growth from the GG team but as of now I still think they are probably the worst team in the LCS.
The three games to look out for in week 4 are TL vs TSM, Dig vs 100T, and 100T vs C9. 100 Thieves need a good bounce-back week but it doesn’t look like it will come easy. The TL vs TSM game will also be very interesting to see if TL can fully get back on their horse and climb back up the standings. What game are you looking forward to the most?
In Other News
If you weren’t able to watch the games you can always check out the vods at lolesports.com. If you don’t have the time to watch or just want a general look at what the big points of each week are be sure to check back at our LCS Recap every Monday. For any other LCS content check out our lol esports page and let me know any thoughts you have on the LCS over on our GameScoutr Twitter Page!