After a short break, the NA LCS has returned, this time bringing an altered Team Liquid roster. With Chae “Piglet” Gwang-jin’s role swap, everyone kept their eyes peeled to see how the AD carry would perform in the mid lane. To see if the role swap was a success, as well as the result of tonight’s second match pairing Phoenix1 against Counter Logic Gaming, check out tonight’s recap.
Team Liquid 2-1 Immortals
Joshua “Dardoch” Hartnett started off this series with a bang, finding three kills early in game one. Dardoch and Immortals utilized this kill lead to push their advantage, taking the various map objectives. Team Liquid tried their best to keep up with Immortals, even sneaking a Baron through a realm warp by Piglet, but even the Baron wasn’t enough to stop Immortals. Almost acing the Baron empowered Liquid, Immortals proceeded to take the remaining objectives and eventually Liquid’s base, earning themselves a game one win.
Drafting an all AD team composition, Immortals looked to end game two before the late game hit. Trying to find a lead to snowball, Immortals played the early game quite aggressively. Unfortunately for Immortals, Liquid noticed this over aggression, punishing the greedy style of play. Holding their own for most of the game, Liquid found their lead in a bot lane teamfight. After this point, Liquid’s composition began to outscale Immortals. Immortals began dealing less and less damage due to all the armor on the side of Liquid. Winning the following teamfights, Liquid slowly grew their lead until they could take the game, evening the series.
Liquid closed out the series in dominant fashion. Piglet and Kim “Reignover” Yeu-jin had an amazing game, working together to be the main reason for Liquid’s initial lead. Immortals tried to fight back, but Liquid was too overwhelming. Immortals could do little but watch Liquid take more and more of their base before they finally lost the game.
Counter Logic Gaming 2-1 Phoenix1
The first game in this series was a complete stomp by Phoenix1. Led by William “Meteos” Hartman, Phoenix1 started this game with a pick onto Jake “Xmithie” Puchero that led to four kills before the 10-minute mark. Phoenix1 beautifully used their lead to dominate all three lanes. Being so far behind, there was little Counter Logic Gaming could do to comeback. Phoenix1, not fooling around, quickly took down Counter Logic Gaming for a convincing game one win.
Quickly recovering from their loss, Counter Logic Gaming fired back with an equally dominant game two win. Playing a very clean game, Counter Logic Gaming kept finding picks onto Phoenix1 with little to no retaliation. By the 18-minute mark, Counter Logic Gaming led the game 6-1 in kills with two drakes under their belt. Taking their time, Counter Logic Gaming closed out the game. With little to no openings available, Phoenix1 could do little to stop Counter Logic Gaming from taking the nexus.
Game three, unlike the previous two, ended up being very close. With neither team finding a noticeable lead during the lane phase, the mid game became a string of teamfights. But slowly through Darshan “Darshan” Upadhyaya’s split pushing on Jayce, Counter Logic Gaming started to conduct the game’s tempo. Winning a few key teamfights in the late game allowed Counter Logic Gaming to close out the game, ending the series with 2-1 win.
What was your favorite moment of the night? Let us know by tweeting us @GAMURScom.
Article by Malcolm Abbas. Follow him on Twitter @SmashhLoL.
