This article is part of our League of Legends series.
Team SoloMid managed to hang on against 100 Thieves on Saturday and take a hotly-contested 3-2 series win to secure third place in the North American League of Legends Championship Series Summer Split at Oracle Arena in Oakland, California.
EU League Championship Series perennial finalist Fnatic expects to be playing in this weekend's season finale, while the members of Schalke 04 are grateful just to be in the building.
TSM mid laner Soren "Bjergsen" Bjerg was dominant at the helm of his squad. Bjergsen played Zilean throughout the series to great results as he enabled the rest of his team to shine. TSM jungler Jonathan "Grig" Armao teamfought well across several games to make up for weak early game pressure, and top laner Kevin "Hauntzer" Yarnell tore through 100 Thieves as Sion, relentlessly pushing forward while Bjergsen spammed his protective Chronoshift to keep Haunzter in the fight.
TSM's bot lane duo left much to be desired, as AD carry Jesper "Zven" Svenningsen and support Alfonso "Mithy" Aguirre Rodriguez contributed but failed to impress, with Mithy in particular suffering from bans and bouts of feeding. Despite that, TSM came back from a 2-1 deficit to take the 3-2 series win and give the team some momentum before the regional gauntlet qualifier for the League of Legends World Championship begins.
100 Thieves, which finishes the summer in fourth, is in a good position to make it to Worlds regardless of this win or not. If Team Liquid takes down Cloud9 on Sunday, then league points will give 100 Thieves a berth to the tournament in South Korea in its first season as a pro League of Legends organization. It's fortunate for 100 Thieves that Saturday didn't matter, though, because the team showed disheartening lack of consistency throughout the latter half of the series.
In its wins, 100 Thieves played slowly initially. Game 1 saw backup AD carry Richard "Rikara" Samuel Oh shine as Jhin while the rest of 100 Thieves pummeled TSM. 100 Thieves punished its opponent for a lack of tanks in a 39-minute win.
Once TSM got comfortable, and AD carry Cody "Cody Sun" Sun got placed back into the lineup, though, 100 Thieves began to look uncertain, and that allowed TSM to dictate the pace.
