On The Edge Of Our Seats: Week 2 Of NA LCS Was Action Packed

At the end of the day you’re only as good as your results, and for some of these teams, those results are good. Another explosive week has concluded in the North American League of Legends Championship Series, and it’s time to break down the big plays, and the players that made them.

Our first game of the weekend saw Clutch Gaming clash with Counter Logic Gaming in what would ultimately turn out to be a rather one-sided affair. Clutch Gaming’s star European mid-laner Febiven managed to rack up an impressive 12-0-3 stat line while also securing an impressive pentakill in their victory over CLG. This fight allowed Clutch Gaming to take the gold lead and snowball their way to victory.

This next game pitted NA LCS stalwarts TSM against newcomer OpTic Gaming in what would become a long and brutal slug fest. Despite TSM taking and maintaining the gold lead at 3 minutes, this game would go on to be the longest game of the week, with TSM taking over an hour to ultimately secure victory. Fans may have been hoping to see some flashy plays out of the legendary Bjergsen, but TSM’s current strategy seems to be to grind out their opponents and force them to make mistakes.

Something of a departure from our previous game saw Cloud9 taking on Echo Fox in what would prove to be the bloodiest match of the week. These two powerhouses met at a point where they were both undefeated, but unfortunately for Cloud9, someone always has to lose. That’s not to say that Cloud9 rolled over and played dead however, making some impressive moves to stay alive, such as a tight Baron steal by jungler Svenskeren. Never one to be outdone though, Echo Fox’s Huni made some slick moves of his own, with a clean teleport flank to catch out Cloud9’s backline and allow his team to secure their own Baron before later on distracting several members of Cloud9 while the rest of his team lay siege to the base. Ultimately it would come down to an extremely close final fight that put Echo Fox over the top and gave them the win.

While the previous game was filled with an abundance of team fights and devastating takedowns, this next game between 100 Thieves and Team Liquid proved that often all it takes is one or two key kills at the right times to secure victory. Perhaps the best example of this is a close 1v1 situation in the top lane between Ssumday and Impact that came down to the wire before Ssumday was able to secure the kill. This back and forth would continue until 100 Thieves was finally able to pin down Team Liquid in a team fight that would ultimately lead to a decisive victory.

Our final game of the first day between the Golden Guardians and Flyquest started somewhat slowly, with the first major conflict not coming until almost 10 minutes into the game before a tussle over dragon turned ugly for GGS. That said, GGS would go on to secure a sizeable gold advantage in the midgame, but a few costly errors allowed Flyquest to slowly whittle this down until they were able to find several back to back key objectives that allowed them to walk away with the win.

If there’s one thing you can trust when watching Echo Fox play, it’s that while it won’t look pretty they will get the job done, as seen in the first match of day two against TSM. TSM’s early game plan of applying pressure against Huni seemed to pay off, allowing them to roam around the map and take the gold lead and several key objectives. Unfortunately, several failed team fights in the mid game allowed Echo Fox to secure their own objectives and neutralize TSM’s gold advantage before making their own rotations to place themselves in position to siege TSM’s base. Ultimately this pressure allowed Echo Fox to catch TSM out of position and secure the victory.

The next match saw Cloud9 taking on 100 Thieves in what would prove to be rather decisive victory for the boys in blue. C9 took the early game initiative with a risky tower dive that netted them two kills and an early game gold lead. Never a team to rest on their laurels, Cloud9 seized upon this minor victory and quickly snowballed into a series of favourable trades and objectives that allowed them to ultimately run free all over the map. The deciding blow would come when C9 would cleanly secure a Baron buff with little opposition, before catching out opposing jungler Meteos and laying siege to the base of 100 Thieves. This would prove to be the end as C9 quickly wrapped up the game with their nearly perfect objective game.

OpTic squared off against Flyquest to mark the halfway point of day two, in a game that demonstrated that just because a game doesn’t start out quick and bloody, doesn’t mean it won’t quickly become so. The mid game proved to be where OpTic wanted to make their stand, in a big team fight that saw Flyquest lose four members and control of the dragon. OpTic would go on to secure two Baron buffs, as well as an uncontested Elder Dragon, before finally catching several members of Flyquest out of position, allowing them to siege the base and end the game.

The Golden Guardians would go on to face off with Counter Logic Gaming for the next match of the day, in what could easily be used as a textbook example of what happens when a team makes a critical mistake in the wrong moment. For much of the early game and leading into the mid game GGS had a fairly comfortable lead, making good objective trades and leading CLG on a merry chase around the map. Unfortunately, CLG quickly tired of this, choosing to tower dive GGS in a fight that was a quick as it was decisive. CLG quickly capitalized on their breathing room to take several key objectives around the map and equalize the gold differential. After that, it was the CLG show, extending their lead before two more quick team fights allowed them to push through GGS and take the victory.

Our final match of the week saw Team Liquid taking on Clutch Gaming in what would end up being the quickest match of the week. For Team Liquid, small scale skirmishes was the name of the game, remaining in full control of the map as they systematically took down objectives. It ultimately fell apart for Clutch Gaming, when a last minute rally against Liquid around Baron proved costly as they lost three members and control of the objective. The end would come only minutes later, as Team Liquid would use their Baron buff to quickly punch into the base of Clutch Gaming and walk away with the victory.

With the matches over, the North American League of Legends Championship Series falls back into the calm before the storm. Whether or not the victors will be able to maintain their swagger remains to be seen, as the losers will almost certainly come back next week better prepared. For more information on that, check out our list of players to watch in week three.