In the Week 3 power rankings, I was brazen and said that OpTic Gaming finally showed us who they really were after a disappointing 0-2 week. However, after they showed up against TSM on the LCS stage today, I’m happy to admit I was wrong.
alright alright alright ... I could have been wrong about who OpTic really is ... they are playing great this week. wow.
— Earp (@WyattFossett) June 22, 2019
On more than one occasion, the better team has lost to the worst team. League of Legends can be volatile like that, and in this momentum-based MOBA, it comes with the territory.
Today’s win against TSM was different though. This wasn’t a team that got lucky or stole momentum on the flip of a coin. OpTic Gaming showed up, played well, and flat out beat TSM in their best-of-one.
As if beating one of the best teams in North America and proving that you’re more than a weak early split schedule wasn’t enough, OpTic Gaming managed to do it with an LCS rookie in their mid-lane in emergency replacement of their World Champion mid-laner Crown.
In his LCS debut, 20-year-old substitute mid-laner Marcel “Scarlet” Wiederhofer comes up from the OpTic Gaming Academy team, and the European absolutely shook TSM to their core.
Multiple times Scarlet found himself teleporting behind TSM and engaging in a surprise team fight, including one very important one that saved the team from the brink of finding themselves a weighty foot.
With the win, OpTic Gaming stops the bleeding from their 2-game losing streak that followed them out of last weekend, overtaking TSM and ending in a smaller tie for 1st Place in the LCS.
Tomorrow, OpTic Gaming will have to take on the lowly Echo Fox team with something to prove. This could either be an easy Sunday for OG or a difficult one, depending on how desperate those sly foxes are. For now, however, OpTic Gaming deserves all of the hype it is getting.
