Golden Guardians crush Liquid to win second game of week six with powerful Kalista-Diana combo

Suddenly, the playoffs isn't far off for the LCS' last-placed team.
Photo by Tina Jo/Riot Games via ESPAT

Golden Guardians continued to show signs of life with another upset victory against Team Liquid in the LCS today. The team is in last place in the 2021 Summer Split, but can still make a surprising run to the playoffs.

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The win gives Golden Guardians a 2-1 record through week six of the League of Legends Championship Series, even though they had one of the toughest schedules of any team this weekend with games against 100 Thieves, TSM, and Liquid. This was also the team’s first full weekend with Licorice as their starting top laner, and the veteran put in work against their opponents by collecting eight kills, 12 assists, and only three deaths on Renekton.

In today’s game, Golden Guardians knew what their win conditions were straight from the draft. The coaching staff opted to pick Kalista in the mid lane, with Diana linked to her in the jungle and Ziggs thrown in the bottom lane for even more early game pushing power. The whole team composition was set to dominate the early game, while Liquid’s composition with Aphelios, Viego, and Dr. Mundo needed time to scale.

As a result, Golden Guardians pushed the tempo with their superior early skirmishing composition. They forced Liquid into continuous teamfights that they’d dominate by first using Nautilus to engage, then having Kalista throw Diana into the backline to get an easy Moonfall ultimate ability off. They never gave Liquid a chance to farm and scale into their power spikes, since they finished the game in 30 minutes.

Liquid couldn’t stop the bleeding it suffered in the early game and was never able to get in position for objectives. Golden Guardians picked up every dragon and neutral objective, and only had four deaths as a team.

Now, there are three weeks left in the 2021 Summer Split, which means that Golden Guardians have nine more games to try and push into the top eight for a postseason berth. Luckily for them, they are only one game away from the eighth-best team in the league, FlyQuest. If they can continue to hold this impressive form, we could see the boys in gold and black sneak into the playoffs by next month.


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Author
Tyler Esguerra
Lead League of Legends writer for Dot Esports. Forever an LCS supporter, AD carry main, with more than five years in the industry. Sometimes I like clicking heads in Call of Duty or VALORANT. Creator of the Critical Strike Podcast.