The four-way tie for first place in the NA LCS was just broken by 100 Thieves in their victory over Echo Fox during the first game of the weekend.
How did Echo Fox fall to 100 Thieves? Well, the short answer is that they inted, but the real problem is a very serious, long-term gameplay issue that they’ve been dealing with since the Spring Split—they can’t stop fighting.
Echo Fox set up this game perfectly, which is what often happens right before they bumble into enemy territory to throw the game away like week-old leftovers. Jungler Joshua “Dardoch” Hartnett pulled off some very clever early jungle pathing to catch and kill 100T carry Cody Sun twice, which should have been enough to shut down 100T’s gold funneling strat completely.
The thing is, though, you can’t stop the int—and Echo Fox really wanted to int.
After racking up a gold lead of about 4,000, Echo Fox proceeded to run into enemy territory, attempting to force fights where they didn’t need to. Thanks to a few stellar plays by 100T all-star support Zaqueri “Aphromoo” Black, 100T managed to nab a few kills, and that seemed to only make Echo Fox even more aggressive—and they tripped up even more thereafter.
Even before that, though, Echo Fox top laner Heo “Huni” Seung-hoon was giving up kill after kill in the top lane. Part of that was because 100T top laner Kim “Ssumday” Chan-ho was straight up smurfing this game. Last split, he struggled a bit—especially during 100T’s worst games. But for the last few weeks, he’s popped off as the best top laner in the region. The other part, however, is that Huni personifies Echo Fox’s problematic aggressiveness to the extreme.
It’s possible that he thinks he has to play super aggressively to carry his team, who have been struggling lately, but it’s not a good look for the former SK Telecom T1 top laner.
Echo Fox’s next game is tomorrow at 6pm CT against the Golden Guardians.
Published: Jul 21, 2018 04:34 pm