A Preview to Playoffs: Week 9 Friday's Matches

The final week of the North America League of Legends Championship Series starts its cast at approximately 3:00p.m. PST. First match of the day is Team Envy versus Immortals. Tonight's final match will be Team Dignitas against Counter Logic Gaming.

The top six teams of the league, or the playoff teams, are in close contention across the standings, and teams will be fighting hard to jockey themselves into a good position for the playoffs. All four teams playing today are in the playoffs, but their position in the standings and their playoff seeds are not cemented. Tonight is a preview to the playoffs as these teams may be facing each other again in the Summer Split Playoffs when it matters most. Below is the current standings, but who will rise and who will fall?

Comments

Cloud9's Best and Worst Case Playoff Scenarios

FLOATING ON CLOUD 9 SCENARIO: C9 wins both games and finishes season with a 12-8 record. Team DIG wins against CLG, but loses against Team Liquid. CLG loses to both TSM and DIG. C9 ends the split in the 3 rd place spot behind IMT and TSM. As the 3 rd seed, C9 will face the 6 th seed during the quarterfinals (1 st round), Envy. If C9 make it to the semifinals (2 nd round), most likely TSM will be their opponent. CLOUD 9’S NIGHTMARE SCENARIO: C9 loses both matches against Envy and Echo Fox, finishing with a 10-8 record. Envy wins both matches against Immortals and C9, finishing with a 10-8 record. C9 vs. Envy match up on Saturday is extremely important because it can determine who is the 5 th and 6 th seed. If Envy wins both matches and C9 loses both matches this weekend, Envy will be 5 th seed because they would have won both matches against C9 during the season. C9 will face the 3 rd seed during the quarterfinals (1 st round)

What is Team Liquid's Plan?

It seems that the name of Team Liquid’s most recent acquisition sums up the organization perfectly, InsanityXXX. There once was a time that Team Liquid was a competitive League of Legends team but that just is not the case anymore. On the surface it seems as though the Team Liquid Organization is willing to acquire top talent, but the problem is they do not know how to use it. During the 2016 offseason, it looked as though on paper Liquid would be in contention for top 3 in the NA LCS; however, for some reason the team just never seemed to be successful. It appears as though Liquid these days makes announcements more for fan reaction, rather than long term competitive success. We constantly hear new headlines about player acquisitions, but nothing really about team culture or changes to infrastructure to bring out the best in their players. In the Team Liquid YouTube video series there was a constant teaser to a new person being part of the roster. To the surprise of m

Was TSM's Botlane The Problem?

Was TSM’s botlane the problem? It’s hard to say. Swapping the best North American botlane for the best European botlane might sound nice, but is it the change the team needs? The 2016 Summer Split iteration of TSM looked like the most dominant North American team since Cloud 9 first came onto the scene. They were hardly challenged domestically until they headed to the world championship where they failed to make it out of groups. This version of TSM were at their best when they were proactive in the early game. This seemed to be a product of the dual decisive shotcalling from Bjergsen and Doublelift. TSM failed to adapt to a different playstyle when taken off their comfort picks. The TSM of 2017 were looking to mend those errors by adopting different styles and playing unique champions. This led to a more methodical version of TSM who looked to stall out the game rather than dictate the pace. One aspect of TSM that has remai

Gank Esports

Search This Blog