TSM are famous for their late-game team comps and strategies. But they’re also well known for playing passive to a fault while they wait for their champions to scale.
Unfortunately for TSM, they were once again out-paced in the early game of today’s match against Echo Fox—and despite crawling back into leads and picking up kills here and there, they made one (or five) too many mistakes.
Echo Fox didn’t play that well, either. They flubbed a few fights and once again played too aggressively at times they didn’t need to, giving resources back to TSM that they had no reason to sacrifice. Despite that, they still came out on top, simply because TSM played even worse. Unfortunately for NA LCS fans, this is the current state of the league. A game between two teams tied for first place boils down to which team messes up the least, rather than which team plays exceptionally.
The standings are indicative of this, too, since the lines are continually blurred between top-tier teams and the middle of the pack. CLG, FlyQuest, and the Golden Guardians are just one game away from catching the three teams tied for first place. Even Clutch Gaming and Cloud9 are one good weekend short from being in the running for the top, and one game away from hitting top six.
Hot off the heels of a failed Rift Rivals, where Europe’s best and even middle-tier teams were able to completely outclass North America at every turn, this game was a bummer to watch.
Echo Fox have shown glimmers of hope this split and throughout most of the last one, so hopefully they’ll be able to hone their edge a bit, pace themselves, and show the fans that they deserve to be a top team in a major region of competitive League of Legends. Their next game is set for Saturday, July 21 against 100 Thieves at 4pm CT.
