This article is part of our LoL Recap series.
Immortals walked away with a strong win Friday in Los Angeles during Week 3 Day 1 of the North American League of Legends Championship Series, sweeping its opposition.
It was the Li "Cody Sun" Yu Sun show to start Game 1, as his Caitlyn was practically gifted three early kills before seven minutes ticked off. Thanks to a failed aggressive bottom lane maneuver, Team Liquid found itself on the losing end of a 2-for-1 trade, ceding major map control over in the process. Immortals (4-1, 8-4 match record) ran with the early advantage, with Lee "Flame" Ho-Jong wreaking havoc over the top lane with his Renekton and pushing Immortals to a nearly 6,000-gold lead before the 20-minute mark. While Team Liquid tried to crawl back into the contest by finally killing Cody Sun in a nifty gank, Immortals answered right back with two kills of its own, quickly securing Baron after the trade.
Immortals didn't have to wait much longer for the Game 1 win, as Eugene "Pobelter" Park finished with a 4/0/7 KDA (kills/deaths/assists) and helped his team blitz through Liquid's Nexus, picking up the sub-30-minute win.
Liquid (1-4, 3-9 match record) seemingly got scared off by the domination in Game 1, and allowed Cody Sun to pick up Caitlyn once again in Game 2. However with a surprise top lane Fiora pick by top laner Samson "Lourlo" Jackson, Team Liquid looked to turn the tides. Coming out of the gate the pick seemed to work out perfectly, as Lourlo secured the first blood, earning a nice lane advantage in the process. While Cody Sun picked up a kill of his own early on, the contest was fairly even throughout the ensuing 20 minutes, with neither side forcing an objective or teamfight. As the game progressed, it looked as though Lourlo's Fiora was going to give his team an advantage heading into the late game, but his hubris ended up being his downfall. Lourlo committed to a late split-push in the bottom lane, picking up an Inhibitor in the process, but Immortals simply let him hack away at the base while it secured the Baron and quickly got back to the base to easily pick off Lourlo. Just like that, Immortals completely flipped the game on its head and used just two more teamfights to pick up the victory, with Cody Sun contributing two kills in the final Nexus knockdown.
Immortals will aim to continue its winning streak Saturday against Cloud9 at 3 p.m ET while Team Liquid will try and right the ship Saturday against Team SoloMid which will take place at the same time.
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It wasn't always clean, but the end result was still more than convincing for Echo Fox, which earned a 2-0 series sweep over EnVyUs on Friday in Los Angeles to end Week 3 Day 1 of the North American League of Legends Championship Series Summer Split.
Team EnVyUs jungler Nam "LirA" Tae-yoo certainly benefited from his team's draft in Game 1, picking up Lee Sin and immediately racing out to a lead after picking up two kills early on. But it was Echo Fox (3-2, 7-4 match record) that would win a handful of close teamfights to gain a bit of an advantage heading into the mid game.
While LirA's Lee Sin continued to make plays, Echo Fox was content playing through top laner Jang "Looper" Hyeong-seok, using his Pantheon to great effect, jumping out to a 2/1/5 KDA (kills/deaths/assists) before 20 minutes. As both teams continued to trade kills back and forth, it looked as if plays around the Baron would ultimately decide the contest. That ended up being the case, but not before both teams squandered opportunities with the buff. EnVyUs' second Baron buff near the 43-minute mark was its downfall, as Echo Fox, after shutting down LirA, calmly finished off the 5-for-1 ace before racing to the Nexus for the Game 1 win.
Drafting an, aggressive AD carry-heavy lineup in Game 2, Echo Fox was on the offense early, with Looper's Kennen securing first blood. However a quick 2-for-1 trade by EnVyUs (3-2, 7-6 combat record) near the 13-minute mark all but knotted up the contest, with EnVyUs content to farm while Echo Fox focused on building up Henrik "Froggen" Hansen's Lucian in the mid lane. Continuing to tease EnVyUs with the possibility of a massive teamfight, Echo Fox diverted just enough attention to secure Baron at the 26-minute mark, opening up the first lead of the contest. Slowly split-pushing the respective lanes, Echo Fox parlayed the buff into a 4,000-gold advantage before 30 minutes. Another Baron kill just four minutes later put immense pressure on EnVyUs as it was forced to respond from near constant pressure on its base from all sides. Never allowing EnVyUs' composition to grow into a strong late-game presence, Echo Fox feigned interest in its third Baron before ultimately wiping three members of EnVyUs, quickly pushing down the Nexus for a series sweep.
Sitting near the top of the NA LCS standings, Echo Fox will try to go 2-0 on the week as it squares off Sunday against Team Dignitas at 6 p.m. ET. EnVyUs face a daunting matchup against Team SoloMid on Sunday at 3 p.m. ET.
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Team SoloMid walked away with an impressive, albeit expected, series victory over Team Liquid on Saturday as the teams kicked off the second day of Week 3 at the North American League of Legends Championship Series in Los Angeles.
Team Liquid showed up huge to start off the series against TSM, gaining a huge lead in the early game. After both junglers picked up their teams' first kills, it became the Kim "Reignover" Yeu-jin show. On Olaf, he quickly found several kills for himself, snowballing the entire Liquid team ahead. Simultaneously, Team Liquid's AD carry Chae "Piglet" Gwang-jin started hitting crucial arrows on Ashe, furthering his team's lead. Despite it's lead, Team Liquid began to falter as the game progressed, seemingly unsure of how to close things out. This allowed TSM to scale back up and the gold swung back in Team SoloMid's favor for the first time since first blood. Off the back of Yiliang "Doublelift" Peng's Xayah and Søren "Bjergsen" Bjerg's Orianna, TSM claimed the first inhibitor tower of the game at 31-minutes. TSM didn't have to wait much longer for the victory as they quickly secured a Baron and won a series of fights to pick up the 41-minute win.
Piglet wasn't discouraged by the defeat, surging into Game 2 by picking up first blood just three minutes into the game, once again on Ashe. TSM was able to respond with a kill of its own thanks to a well-orchestrated gank by Dennis "Svenskeren" Johnsen's Elise, taking down Samson "Lourlo" Jackson's Gragas. As the game progressed, both teams saw their carries focused heavily by the dive compositions of the other squad. Although hectic, the midgame saw TSM pull ahead thanks to Kevin "Hauntzer" Yarnell's Jarvan IV play that allowed his team to delete enemy threats. Thanks to an impressive pick by Vincent "Biofrost" Wang's Rakan, TSM found a quick kill onto Reignover's Kha'Zix, leading to a 28-minute Baron. With the buff, the game was blown wide open, as TSM took a final teamfight just outside the enemy Nexus to lock up the series sweep.
TSM will try and continue its winning streak Sunday as it takes on EnVyUs at 3:00 p.m. ET while Team Liquid will aim to bounce back next Saturday as it takes on Cloud9.
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Immortals' early split surge continued Saturday with a 2-1 series victory over Cloud9 on Week 3, Day 2 of the North American League of Legends Championship Series Summer Split in Los Angeles.
Cloud9 (2-3, 6-6 match record) secured LeBlanc early in the Game 1 draft for mid laner Nicolaj "Jensen" Jensen and gave him plenty of gank help to ensure a good start. After Jensen got his lead, he began to roam into side lanes, securing kills. Cloud9's superb vision control and macro decisions earned it plenty of picks to set up a 25-minute Baron kill. Immortals (5-1, 10-5 match record) defense slowed C9 down, but couldn't stop it from knocking down an inhibitor off the Baron power play. An ace in the ensuing teamfight all but locked up the Game 1 win for Cloud9 as it immediately blitzed through the Nexus.
In the Game 2 draft, Immortals picked a strong teamfighting composition and focused on feeding resources into its AD carry Li "Cody Sun" Yu Sun on Tristana. While Cody Sun fell behind in CS during the laning phase, he made up for it with kills thanks to a lot of gank assistance. IMT's early teamfight dominance earned it an objective lead but C9's CS advantages from the laning phase kept the team gold close. Cloud9 found a pick and felt comfortable enough to chase IMT under turret, but got punished for overextending. IMT scored an ace, earning a Baron kill 27 minutes in that broke open Game 2. Cloud9's base weathered the first Baron power play, but the second was too much to handle as IMT pushed to tie up the series.
Cloud9 went back to a more traditional team composition for Game 3 while Immortals went for a composition centered around split-pushing and finding picks. IMT picked up the pace early as it swapped lanes at the 12-minute mark, trading two turrets for one. After the turret trade, IMT started to build a lead thanks to split-push pressure from top laner Lee "Flame" Ho-Jong's Kled. While Cloud9 held on with the help of the first Baron, Immortals fought right back to shut down the power play from C9. C9 then went for a Baron attempt after securing a teamfight win in the late game, but it didn't account for IMT jungler Jake "Xmithie" Puchero's Elise, who sacrificed himself to expertly steal the Baron. Cloud9 was running out of chances to come back and opted to force a fight around the Elder Dragon at the 48-minute mark that Immortals easily won to finish up the 2-1 series victory.
Cloud9's Week 3 continues on Sunday against FlyQuest at 6 p.m. ET and Immortals next series kicks off Week 4 on Friday against Counter Logic Gaming at 6 p.m. ET.
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Despite the close series, FlyQuest found itself still with only one victory in the Summer Split as it went down 2-1 to Counter Logic Gaming on Saturday in Week 3, Day 2 of the North American League of Legends Championship Series in Los Angeles.
CLG jungler Joshua "Dardoch" Hartnett commanded Game 1 on Gragas, with four of his team's five kills by 10 minutes. This immense pressure helped get top laner Darshan "Darshan" Upadhyaya's Jayce a huge early lead, which eventually snowballed to a nearly 100-CS advantage. With FlyQuest distracted by Darshan at 24 minutes, CLG was free to take Baron and push itself even further ahead. From there, CLG had no trouble maintaining its perfect objective control, ending the game in 35 minutes with three Ocean Drakes and all its towers intact.
Dardoch's Gragas was equally strong in Game 2, participating in all but one of CLG's nine pre-20-minute kills. Once again, Darshan was set up for huge success, this time on Renekton, as he even managed to nab a triple kill at 16 minutes as CLG aced FlyQuest. However, some sloppy deaths from CLG prevented it from closing out the game, and suddenly the scaling from Hai "Hai" Lam's Orianna and Jason "WildTurtle" Tran's Caitlyn came online. Now able to dominate teamfights, FlyQuest came back with a pair of Barons and ended Game 2 in 46 minutes.
Game 3 was a back-and-forth brawl from the very start, with Hai's trendy mid Lucian pick starting out 4/0/0 (kills/deaths/assists) in the first seven minutes. FLY followed up by picking up a triple kill for top laner An "Balls" Le on Rumble in the mid lane, evening out the gold. The remainder of the game featured the two high-damage teamfight compositions butting heads time and again, but it was CLG who ultimately came out on top, largely thanks to Trevor "Stixxay" Hayes on Caitlyn. The AD carry had a monster performance in the final teamfight to end the game 11/3/13 in 41 minutes.
FlyQuest will still be looking to find its first win against former sister team Cloud9 on Sunday at 6p.m. ET, while Counter Logic Gaming hopes to remain at the top of the standings with a win over Phoenix1 at 3 p.m. ET.
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Dignitas walked away with a solid 2-1 win over Phoenix1 after a back-and-forth series Saturday in Los Angeles during Week 3 Day 2 of the North American League of Legends Championship Series.
With Phoenix1 opting to use their newest roster addition, jungler Michael "MikeYeung" Yeung, all eyes were on the rookie during Game 1 as he entered the rift as Kha'Zix, and it paid off in the early game, as MikeYeung picked up a series of early kills for his team. After finding itself at an early deficit as a result, Dignitas had to battle back with the help of the invisibility of Benjamin "LOD" deMunck's Twitch. Once teamfights broke out, Dignitas started to gain the upper hand on the back of Lae-Young "Keane" Jang's Viktor, who managed to both wave-clear and dominate fights in the late game. After Dignitas found the first Baron of the game and cracked the enemy base 31 minutes in, it was in full control. Shortly after, LOD and Kim "Ssumday" Chan-ho were able to back door the enemy base while Phoenix1 attempted to take a Baron, allowing Dignitas to take the 37-minute win.
After the loss, Phoenix1 didn't let up, storming into Game 2 to bounce back in the series. After Derek "Zig" Shao's Kled fell, giving first blood to Lee "Shrimp" Byeong-hoon's Kha'zix, it quickly became the Ryu "Ryu" Sang-wook show. Using Taliyah perfectly, he turned the tides of unfavorable skirmishes to build a large lead for his team. After bouncing back, he found himself a Penta Kill just shy of 20 minutes to take full control of the game for Phoenix1. The team never slowed down after, continually taking favorable exchanges and choking out Dignitas. After forcing a fight at Baron just 22 minutes into the game, Phoenix1 had enough of a lead to push into the enemy base, closing things out in 25 minutes to tie up the series.
Dignitas shook off the loss quickly and moved into Game 3 with blood in its eyes. After picking up first blood thanks to a gank by Terry "Big" Chuong's Rakan and Shrimp's Kha'zix, the team began to push its advantage. Much like the previous game, things went back and forth early, but Keane's Cassiopea proved to be enough to deter Phoenix1 from taking any fights. Once Dignitas took an early Baron, it was all but over for Phoenix1. It tried to gain some footing in the late game, but Dignitas simply kept pushing and came up with both a second Baron and Elder Dragon to solidify the lead. With the buffs, Dignitas had no trouble closing things out just shy of 44-minutes to secure the series victory.
Dignitas will look to continue climbing the standings Sunday as it takes on Echo Fox 6 p.m. ET, while Phoenix1 will attempt to pick up their first victory of the split Sunday against Counter Logic Gaming at 3 p.m. ET.
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Team SoloMid fought through a 2-0 sweep of Team EnVyUs to kick off Week 3, Day 3 of the North American League of Legends Championship Series Summer Split on Sunday in Los Angeles.
In Game 1, Team EnVyUs (3-3, 7-8 match record) drafted a teamfighting composition that was heavy on magic damage and struggled to get off the ground. Team SoloMid top laner Kevin "Hauntzer" Yarnell had an easy choice of itemization, stacking magic resist and becoming unkillable early on as Gragas. EnVy forced fights throughout the first half of the game but lost every trade without securing a kill against TSM's superior frontline due to a lack of true tanks on EnVy's side. TSM was methodical in pushing its advantage as it took objectives all over the Rift, running up a gold lead that buried NV in a hole it couldn't dig out of. EnVy's first and only kill came in the closing moments of Game 1 as TSM pushed to a Game 1 win in 27 minutes to go up 1-0 in the series.
For the second game in a row, Lee Sin slipped through the draft phase and Team SoloMid (4-2, 9-5 match record) scooped him up for often maligned jungler Dennis "Svenskeren" Johnsen. Svenskeren was active early and often on the Blind Monk, ganking mid lane to get first blood and then stealing away jungle camps. Team EnVy's fought back during the mid game by winning skirmishes to take control, but Team SoloMid didn't panic and kept the gold close as it fought back late. After chasing NV off of a Baron attempt 31 minutes in, TSM took the buff for itself and took back control of the game with its powerful pick composition able to teamfight well in the late game. EnVy struggled to coordinate its defense as it lost turrets and inhibitors to TSM, which took a final 4-for-0 teamfight in EnVy's base before finishing off the Nexus and securing the series win in 40 minutes.
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Counter Logic Gaming defeated Phoenix1 on Sunday with a 2-1 series win during Week 3, Day 3 of the North American League Championship Series in Los Angeles.
The series started with a slightly less than standard draft, with both teams banning out the majority of the power picks and opting for slightly less conventional champions. Notably, Counter Logic Gaming (5-1, 11-6 match record) opted to put support Zaqueri "aphromoo" Black on Morgana while Phoenix1 (0-6, 4-12 match record) favored Jayce for top laner Derek "zig" Shao. After a rather quiet early game, CLG top laner Darshan "Darshan" Upadhyaha showed up huge on Kennen, hitting a five-man Slicing Maelstrom that stunned all of P1 for a 19-minute CLG ace. In doing so, CLG found its first lead in the game and never slowed down, finding several picks from mid laner Choi "Huhi" Jae-hyun 's Ahri and AD carry Trevor "Stixxay" Hayes' Ashe to close out Game 1 in just 35 minutes.
Game 2 saw CLG gifted three power picks in Galio, Rakan, and Xayah, while Phoenix1 opted to give rookie jungler Mike "MikeYeung" Yeung Nidalee. P1's faith in its young jungler paid off with MikeYeung picking up first blood onto Huhi's Lucian in an early skirmish. Phoenix1 kept up the pace as MikeYeung repeatedly ganked Darshan's Galio, snowballing zig's Renekton ahead despite having died earlier in a 1-vs-1. Up against a team with little wave clear, Phoenix1 constantly pushed waves and claimed objectives, choking CLG out of the game and never allowing it to recover. With mid laner Ryu "Ryu" Sang-wook hitting a massive Petrifying Gaze as Cassiopeia in late teamfights, Phoenix1 picked up an Elder Dragon and closed out the game in just under 39 minutes, bringing the series to Game 3.
The final game saw a more standard draft from both teams, with Phoenix1 opting to deny Lee Sin from CLG jungler Joshua "Dardoch" Hartnet while Counter Logic Gaming heavily focused P1 AD carry No "Arrow" Dong-hyeon's champion pool. In yet another aggressive early game, Darshan picked up two quick kills on Fiora to earn a lead for CLG, but MikeYeung quickly responded by moving around the map to earn a map-wide advantage for P1. Moving into the late game with strong teamplay, Phoenix1 maintained a large gold lead for the majority of the game. This stayed true until 34-minutes, when an excellent engage from aphromoo's Braum shattered Phoenix1 and gave CLG an ace and a Baron kill. Off the back of that play, CLG gathered its forces and came storming back in the game, winning a final fight at 34-minutes to close out the game and secure the 2-1 series victory.
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Cloud9 had a dominant performance in its 2-0 series sweep of FlyQuest on Sunday to close out Week 3, Day 3 of the North American League of Legends Championship Series Summer Split in Los Angeles.
Cloud9 (3-3, 8-6 match record) drafted a split pushing composition in Game 1 and played it very well early. FlyQuest found some return kills but got picked apart as it quickly fell behind in gold and experience. C9 jungler Juan "Contractz" Garcia's Elise invested a lot of time and resources into getting mid laner Nicolaj "Jensen" Jensen's Syndra a lead, which paid off as Jensen carried Cloud9. Roaming throughout the mid game and helping his teammates apply pressure that suffocated FlyQuest throughout the second half, Jensen ensured that FlyQuest (1-5, 4-10 match record) got picked apart, giving Cloud9 uncontested objective control. Jensen had a dominant performance throughout Game 1, racking up kills en route to a 11/0/5 KDA (kills/deaths/assists) and Player of the Game honors. In the end, a final teamfight around FlyQuest's Nexus went 3-for-1 in Cloud9's favor as it pushed for a 1-0 series lead.
In the Game 2 draft, FlyQuest drafted two assassins for its pick centered team composition. Jungler Galen "Moon" Holgate's Rengar made an early gank in top lane to secured first blood, however, whenever Moon made a move on one side of the Rift, Contractz's Elise was making plays on the opposite side. Cloud9 started to pull ahead in gold during the mid game as its rotations earned a gold lead through objectives. FlyQuest, with its assassins falling behind, struggled to put together winning teamfights, but kept hope alive with a spectacular Baron steal 25-minutes in. The Baron power play closed the gold-gap a little but nowhere near enough for FlyQuest to turn things around. Cloud9 went back to dictating the pace once Baron wore off and nearly aced FlyQuest as it pushed to finish the series.
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Team Dignitas retained its share of first place with a 2-1 victory over Echo Fox to close out Week 3, Day 3 of the North American League of Legends Championship Series Summer Split in Los Angeles.
The series started out as a highlight reel for Echo Fox mid laner Henrik "Froggen" Hansen on Ahri in Game 1. Roaming early and often, Froggen participated in five of his team's seven kills by the 30-minute mark, one of which was a solo kill onto his lane opponent. However, Team Dignitas (5-1, 11-6 match record) had massive amounts of area-of-effect damage built into its team comp between Rumble top for star Kim "Ssumday" Chan-ho, Orianna for mid laner Jang "Keane" Lae-young, and Kalista for AD carry Benjamin "LOD" deMunck. Echo Fox (3-3, 8-6) failed to snowball its lead quickly enough, stalling before eventually falling to DIG's superior 5-vs-5 once the latter had a chance to scale, ending the game in 50 minutes.
Echo Fox jungler Matthew "Akaadian" Higginbotham went on an early rampage as Elise in Game 2, picking up three kills and an assist before the nine-minute mark. Combined with the kills picked up by FOX's Varus/Blitzcrank bottom lane, Echo Fox jumped out to a huge early lead. After picking up Baron at 21 minutes, FOX held a roughly 10,000-gold lead by the 25-minute mark. Some unnecessary deaths from top laner Jang "Looper" Hyeong-seok's Rumble made things a bit scary for Echo Fox, but its objective lead allowed it to close out the game after a 5-for-3 ace around Baron at 38 minutes, forcing Game 3.
Game 3 featured the closest early game of the series with only a few kills and objectives getting picked up for either team. This left the gold within 2,000 until 25 minutes in, when Dignitas snagged a Baron kill from under Echo Fox's nose. FOX's last-second attempt to stop the objective take resulted in disaster as Dignitas support Terry "Big" Chuong's Rakan landed a beautiful Quickness into Grand Entrance initiation combo, setting up Keane's Cassiopeia to melt through Echo Fox in seconds. This teamfight was all it took to swing the game, as Dignitas ended the series quickly afterwards in 28 minutes with the buff still intact.
