Although Golden Guardians got their full-strength roster back to the LCS stage today, the results were largely the same for the league’s ninth-place squad, as they fell to Evil Geniuses following a 32-minute dissection from the defending LCS champs.
The game remained largely even through the early-game, as Evil Geniuses built a slow and steady gold advantage without having to rely on kills. In fact, through the first 26 minutes of the game, only three total kills were claimed by both teams collectively. It was a four-for-one teamfight in the late-game—a teamfight in which all four of EG’s kills went onto Danny’s Zeri—that allowed the team to claim a Baron buff and snowball their gold lead for good.
In total, Danny picked up 10 kills on Zeri today, finishing with a scoreline of 10/2/2 on the champion. It is Danny’s seventh 10-plus kill game of the season, and his fourth with Zeri. In addition, Danny dealt over 51 percent of Evil Geniuses’ total damage this game, according to the LCS’ official stats-focused Twitter account.
With this win, EG have temporarily claimed sole possession of first place in the LCS. They came into the week tied for first with 100 Thieves, who will play FlyQuest later today. The top two seeds in the regular season will receive a first-round bye in the LCS Championship.
As for Golden Guardians, the team has now lost seven games in a row. Earlier this week, Golden Guardians dismissed the General Manager of its League team, Danan Flander. Flander made an effort to bolster Golden Guardians roster this split by acquiring in former Dignitas jungler River in a trade, but the team has yet to win a game since the acquisition.
Despite their struggles, Golden Guardians are still in the hunt for a playoff spot, as the top eight teams in the league will make the LCS Championship. Currently, Golden Guardians sit 0.5 games behind Immortals for the eighth and final playoff berth. Immortals will play Cloud9 later tonight.
Things don’t get much easier for Golden Guardians in the near future, either. They’ll have to face off against third-place Team Liquid tomorrow, before finishing off their Summer Split against Dignitas.
