As we near the end of the Summer split of LCS, we saw some of the most action packed games this split. Last weekend showed us teams were not going to give up their hopes on either staying in the LCS or clutching a playoff birth to be considered as a team for worlds.

 

One of the craziest events this weekend was Team Impulse’s victory over Team SoloMid on Saturday. Regarded as the match of the week, this match didn’t fail to disappoint. Going into the match, fans and even TSM expected Team Impulse to use their pointless aggression to create a chaotic early game to try to take an early lead. Team Impulse surprised everybody with rather calculated play. Even Rush played more of a farm game on his Nidalee to show he knows more than solo-queue tactics.

 

As we moved into the mid-game, Team Impulse showed more of their calculated play to thwart Team SoloMid’s actions to take the lead in the top lane. XiaoWeiXiao used his Orianna combo to annihilate Bjergsen’s health on Twisted Fate in order to eliminate the possibility of Bjergsen using Destiny to teleport into the fray. In doing this, Team Impulse evened the odds of the skirmish and Team SoloMid engaged the fight into Team Impulse. In this fight, WildTurtle overextended himself to create an opportunity for Team Impulse to strengthen the odds in their favor. Apollo landed the killing blow on WildTurtle and took Lustboy down not long after. They chased Santorin’s Gragas down to give Rush the third kill of the fight and not too much later, XiaoWeiXiao found Dyrus in the mid-lane to gain a fourth kill off the drawn out fight. From here, Team Impulse used their lead to kill two dragons and a Baron never giving TSM a lead after this fight.

 

The match ended with Team Impulse having an 8000 gold lead and TSM not having a chance to find a way back in. Team Impulse showed the world they aren’t a team to be counted out of World Championships. They showed they can play a calculated game that can earn them relatively clean victories and teams should fear the team that is now on an 8 game winning streak after this weekend. This winning streak has moved Team Impulse up the standings to now be tied for second place with CLG and Team Liquid even with the absence of their star support Adrian.

 

Another team that surprised the world was Cloud 9. With an enormous victory over NME and a heartbreaking loss to CLG, they showed that even with all the personnel changes in recent weeks, they can still make a run to win a sure spot in the LCS. In their match against NME, Cloud 9 won the game straight out of pick/ban phase. Placing their players on comfort picks was sure to bring victory to the struggling Cloud 9. Another pick that placed the victory in their lap was Innox’s Master Yi pick. Everybody thought this would be a pick for the jungle but emerged a mid-lane pick against Incarnati0n’s Ahri. One time Innox played the matchup right dodging Ahri’s charm-poke combo with his Alpha Strike. After this moment, it never happened again, giving Incarnati0n a massive advantage that ultimately lead to Incarnati0n’s massive score of 9/0/3 at the end of the game.

 

The game that was surprisingly a good game was Cloud 9’s match against CLG on Sunday where CLG barely pulled out a victory against the reborn Cloud 9. This time, Cloud 9 returned to a more “meta” pick strategy against CLG’s multi-purpose team. Cloud 9 played the early game perfectly against the usually aggressive map movements of CLG. Cloud 9 kept constant pressure on the lanes with Hai’s Nidalee and almost every lane was a winning lane by the end of the early game.

 

As the game moved on, neither team was afraid to fight turning the game into a bloodbath. The game ended with a total of 43 kills because of the many team fights that occurred in the middle lane. Some of the fights weren’t even over an objective, seeming almost random.

 

Each team fight came out almost dead even with a team barely winning with only one or two team members alive to try to create an objective advantage. Doublelift used his spell-shield mechanics perfectly to prevent Incarnati0n’s Shockwave ultimate from damaging him allowing him to still be relevant in every fight. Due to this fact and Incarnati0n’s poor positioning in most fights, CLG was allowed a victory that was no less earned than given to them.

 

CLG kept their first place dreams alive with this win and continued to place in the playoffs at the end of the season. CLG seems to have ended their mid-season losing spree to now be on a four game winning streak.

 

Though Cloud 9 went 1-1 this week, Cloud 9 showed they have the ability to continue to challenge the top teams. Next week should be an interesting end to the season as they face TDK and TSM. Possibly ending in a 2-0 week if they can continue their strong play. TSM has seemed to be struggling as they just ended a four game winning streak on Sunday against Team Dignitas putting TSM in 5th and Team Dignitas in 6th.

 

Team Dignitas confused their fans this weekend as they went 1-1 with a victory over Gravity and a loss against TSM. They handily defeated Gravity with KiWiKiD being able to control the battlefield on his Thresh and Shiphtur scoring an early game pentakill on his Ahri. Shiphtur was able to take over the game after an early game teamfight where Gravity refused to respect Gamsu’s Mega Gnar. Because of their disrespect, four members of Gravity were Gnared into the wall giving Shiphtur the perfect opportunity to kill them all earning himself a quadrakill. He chased down Altec into Gravity’s red side jungle to earn the final kill for his pentakill. Though Dignitas ended the game with a large majority of the kills, the game didn’t end for 56 minutes. Gravity refused to give up and fought for each objective. Move denied Dignitas a 5th dragon buff twice to almost even the dragon score by the end of the game. Unfortunately their efforts to come back weren’t enough to end the game in their favor. The game ended with Team Dignitas on top with a 5.6k gold lead.

 

Dignitas’ Sunday match versus TSM would prove to be a different story though. The game started as a possible victory for Dignitas as they had just taken down the number one team in America the day before but as they stepped out on Summoner’s Rift, Dignitas looked either unprepared or lost. TSM stomped all over Dignitas without Dignitas ever really trying to gain an advantage. Dignitas is known for their punishing playstyle but TSM played their normally passive game effectively nullifying Dignitas’ game plan. Because of this, Dignitas was most often giving up objectives without any consequences for TSM. The game ended with Dignitas having no nexus, a dragon and having destroyed only two enemy turrets. Though Dignitas ended the weekend on a very confusing note, they effectively put an end to their losing streak with their win over Gravity.

 

This weekend saw the rise and fall of many teams in the North American LCS to set up for an exciting final week of the normal season. After next week we will see who will advance to playoffs to fight for a spot at World Championships this fall.

   NA LCS Week 8: The Final Countdown