It wasn’t long ago that newly formed Origen were competing in the European Challenger Series, trying to make it into the League Championship Series.
Now, just six months after qualifying for the LCS, Origen have defeated the No. 1 seed from China, LGD Gaming, on the biggest stage in the game.
It’d be an understatement to call it an upset. LGD weren’t just favorites to win the game, but the whole competition. The European side closed out an intensely close game with a backdoor on the LGD nexus, but not from the man you might be thinking of.
“I think I played good beside the level one when I fucked up my flash,” said Paul “sOAZ” Boyer with a smile. “Beside that I played good in the first 15 minutes of the game”
It was Boyer who ended the marathon game by pushing down two nexus towers and the nexus itself while his team kept the LGD players from recalling from the baron area. Only minutes earlier, team mid laner, captain, and owner, Enrique “Xpeke” Cedeño netted a quadra kill on Orianna to give Origen the lead for the first time in the match. “Overall it felt good because my team played really great and we played really solid in teamfights,” Boyer said. “So it was good overall.”
For a time, it looked likely LGD would take it home with a gold lead after a disastrous missplay from the European side. “I saw Braum away from Kog’Maw, so I said to go on Kog and then all of a sudden Braum is there, so I was like ‘What the fuck is he doing here?’” Boyer said. “Xpeke decided to TP to help me and we ended up giving two kills to Imp. We didn’t lose much in the gold difference, but we lost a lot of pressure from that.”
Origen recovered from the slip by catching the Chinese squad out of position and picking their fights extremely well, eventually taking winning with Boyer’s backdoor. It could well end up as one of the most exciting matches of the tournament—and we’re only on day two. And for a team that most expected to struggle after a shaky showing in the European LCS Regional finals, it’s an outstanding start to their World Championship campaign. Still, it’s hardly over. Next up are North America’s Team SoloMid and Korea’s KT Rolster.
“A lot of teams actually told us that KT is looking better than LGD,” Boyer said, “I won’t underestimate TSM either, even though they lost today, they are still a good team. Personally I like being the underdog so it’s fine by me that some people say we will not make it.”
SoloMid fell to KT Rolster in the opening game of the group. Origen will take on the North Americans in the fourth game on Saturday. A win there will take them to a strong 2-0 start, while a loss would put them on level terms with the North Americans.
“I’m more scared of us playing TSM’s game,” Boyer said. “As long as we play our own game and don’t get baited into taking bad fights, we should be fine. We will also have to watch out for Bjergsen and have a good champion select. If we do these things I think we will be fine, but we won’t underestimate them.”
Origen are back in action against SoloMid on Saturday and then again on Sunday when they take on KT Rolster, the final team they will face in the first round of best-of-ones. Picking up at least one more victory will put the team in good standing to make a push for the knockout stages.
Photo Riot Games/Flickr
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