Flyquest – Cloud9

The first match to kick things off today saw Cloud9 battling to retain their spot at the top of the ladder. The game seemed fairly even throughout the early game, with neither team managing to make any significant gains over the other, but over the mid game Flyquest was slowly able to eke out a lead, picking up individual kills here and there and taking more objectives than they lost. It seemed to be going pretty solidly in FlyQuests' favour as the teams approached the end game, however Cloud9 was able to win an important team fight at the Baron pit, taking down three members of Flyquest and securing the Baron for themselves. Another rough and tumble team fight in the base of Flyquest wasn’t enough to stop Cloud9 as they walked their way to victory.

Golden Guardians – 100 Thieves

Our second game of the day, and the first major upset of the day as well. Golden Guardians managing to secure their first win of the season over 100 Thieves. With a game plan that revolved around keeping the objective tempo flowing, GGS were able to progress through the early game relatively unscathed, and made their move in the mid game. Seizing objective after objective, GGS slowly grinded out a lead that proved to be unassailable for 100 Thieves. There would be no final confrontation, as the game ended in a mad scramble to finish off the nexus of 100 Thieves.

TSM – CLG

The battle of rivals takes our third match of the day. TSM and CLG managed to play a fairly clean early game, with multiple objectives falling before anyone on either team did. When the fights finally started, they were brutal though, with a knock down brawl for first blood resulting in half of the players on the map falling. It wasn’t until a decisive fight in the Baron pit saw TSM almost Ace CLG before beginning to siege their base. It wasn’t long after that TSM would make their final push into the base of CLG, taking them down to close out the game and put themselves squarely into the top 5.

Team Liquid – Echo Fox

The second last match of the day was a must win for Echo Fox if they wanted to hold onto their spot on top of the standings. The game started out in Team Liquids favour, with some good moves early on, but Echo Fox was quick to bite back, securing several objectives and taking down Liquid members seemingly with impunity. The gold advantage bounced back and forth between these two teams, as Liquid refused to go down without a fight. In the end however, Echo Fox was the team able to make the correct rotations, and once they started to push into the base of Liquid, it was all over. Echo Fox are now tied for first place with Cloud9, and with the teams set to go head to head next week, it’s sure to be an explosive match.

OpTic Gaming – Clutch Gaming

The final match of the day saw OpTic Gaming taking on Clutch Gaming in a battle that seemed to go one way, right up until it didn’t. OpTic took the early lead and seemed to have the game well in hand as they extended their gold advantage. It wasn’t until towards the end of the mid game that Clutch Gaming was able to start to turn things around, rapidly securing map objectives and taking down members of OpTic wherever they found them. A long stretch began where OpTic could do nothing but watch as every attempt to contest an objective fell flat, and it wasn’t long before Clutch Gaming was knocking down the doors of OpTic’s base.

With the games all finished for the week, we’ve gone from three teams on top of the ladder, to two. For more information on the Golden Guardians first win of the season, check out our breakdown here, and for more information on when these teams will be battling it out next, check out the official schedule page here.