TSM finished their weekend with a victory over the Golden Guardians, despite a slow start.
The former North American LCS champions once again picked Aatrox for top laner Kevin “Hauntzer” Yarnell despite Renekton being open, and they once again got punished for the pick. Hauntzer gave up first blood to Samson “Lourlo” Jackson on a top lane dive with jungler Juan “Contractz” Garcia, and he died after to a repeat gank.
Golden Guardians grew impatient, however, and a failed dive led by Son “Mickey” Young-min’s Irelia swung the game in TSM’s favor. From there, overeager engages from the Guardians spelled their doom as TSM ended the game off clean objective play around the map.
Golden Guardians have been looking much improved in their second split, often finding early-game advantages against even the best teams in the league. Unfortunately for them, their risky style of play can backfire like it did against TSM and cause them to lose early tempo. The Guardians need to learn how to channel their aggression and not overdive in the early game.
On TSM’s side, the draft still looks to be a problem. The first round of the draft phase went exactly the same as it did against Cloud9 yesterday, and TSM rounded out its team composition with a Kai’Sa and Alistar bot lane duo. The team picked two losing side lanes and essentially played the game reactively, choosing to capitalize on the Guardians’ mistakes instead of making plays on their own. Although it worked this time, this playstyle simply doesn’t work against the best teams in the league, like Team Liquid.
Both teams have issues to work on before their next matches. TSM will try to extend their win streak to three when they face off against 100 Thieves on Saturday, while the Guardians will look to find another win over Clutch Gaming.
