Today’s games were a chance at redemption for Team Liquid, Immortals and Team EnVyUs. All three of these teams had a rocky start to the split, and were determined to turn their play around.
Phoenix1, however, had an unexpectedly great start to the split, coming into week three 3-1. Looking to further cement their place as a top NA team, P1 was focused on beating IMT to extend their win streak.
Phoenix1 2-0 Immortals
Despite the early kill lead Joshua “Dardoch” Hartnett managed to find in the first 10 minutes, game one was a battle on whether Yoo “Ryu” Sang-ook or Lee “Flame” Ho-jong could carry harder. While Ryu was demolishing Immortals on Cassiopea, Flame was dismantling Phoenix1’s turrets. Staying true to his name, Flame “flame horizoned” Derek “zig” Shao, and looked to split-push his team to victory. But as the game progressed, split-pushing became less and less viable, forcing Flame to group with his team. As the game progressed to the 40 minute mark, both IMT and P1 hesitated to engage, worried about the death timers. By 53 minutes, P1 finally found the perfect team-fight, wiping IMT to take game one.
P1 had almost complete control of game two. Like game one, Ryu continued to dominate the mid lane, solo killing Eugene “Pobelter” Park during the laning phase. Unlike game one, zig did not fall behind and was able to neutralize Flame, IMT’s prior win condition. P1 used the mid game to methodically close out the game. 42 minutes in, a Baron-empowered P1 stormed through IMT’s crumbling base to secure the series win.
Team EnVyUs 2-0 Team Liquid
Game one started with a relatively slow early game. But once the first set of turrets fell, the game devolved into a series of team-fights. EnVyuS, barely managing to come ahead in these team-fights, used their advantages to grab major map objectives like the elemental drakes, as well as the Baron. After an extended back and forth, nV managed to almost ace Team Liquid, taking out three members. With only two members of TL alive, nV was able to take the nexus with ease, ending game one in 38 minutes.
Isaac “Azael“ Cummings Bentley summed up game two perfectly in saying that “nV completely dismantled TL.” From start to finish, nV’s macro game was far better than TL. Being behind in kills almost the entire game, nV accrued their gold lead through their map movements and rotational play. nV spent the entirety of the mid game slowly destroying TL’s base, knowing they had the game in the bag. At 33 minutes, nV had enough of an advantage to end game two, thus earning them their first series win of 2017.
What was your favorite moment of the night? Let us know by commenting below or tweeting us @GAMURScom.
Article by Malcolm Abbas. Follow him on Twitter @SmashhLoL.
Photos courtesy of LoL Esports
