The stretch run of the League Championship Series kicked off with a death knell.
Team Coast is know officially relegated from the top competition in League of Legends. The new 1-14 team has no chance of finishing ahead of the last spot in the standings, meaning the top team in the Challenger Series will replace them in the Summer Split.
Of course, for the historically dismal squad that result was all but concluded prior to their loss today against Team Impulse—they needed four wins and four losses from either of Dignitas or Winterfox to survive.
Team Coast read the writing on the wall last week, moving the two top performing players on their LCS squad, Matt “Impaler” Taylor and Jamie “Sheep” Gallagher, to the newly purchased challenger team Final Five, filling the LCS team with what are essentially ringers. It’s a bid to win another spot in the LCS through Final Five, one of the top performing challenger squads this season.
The new Coast lineup, featuring Dillon “WelcomeTo Heaven” Stayner in the jungle and Kevin “KonKwon” Kwon at support, picked an odd team composition with Cho’Gath in the middle and Gragas in the jungle. It was a composition built for disengage as their Irelia split pushed. But they never got that far.
In a continuation of last week’s domination, Team Impulse trashed Coast’s game plan. Jungler Lee “Rush” Yoon-jae scored multiple early kills as Nidalee, leading into a frenetic game with Impulse bullying Coast for 30 minutes.
Granted, that’s about what you’d expect from a squad thrown together at the last minute.
Team Impulse marksman Apollo Price, who played for Coast during their last stint in the LCS in 2014 when he went by the alias “Wizfujin,” closed the door on his former team with a 6/0/6 KDA performance. It’s a fitting way for Coast to exit the LCS—done in by one of their former players.
Now current former Coast players Taylor and Gallagher will look to bring the name back into the LCS as part of Final Five. It’s an interesting strategy for the Coast organization, one that can’t stay out of the LCS no matter how many times the tough league beats them down.
Photo via Riot Games/Flickr
