If Golden Guardians weren’t on your radar as a top contender within the LCS when the 2023 Spring Split began, they most certainly better be now.
After handily defeating last year’s Spring champions Evil Geniuses, Golden Guardians have extended their unprecedented sweep of the LCS to seven-straight wins. This continues to be the longest win streak in the history of the organization, and is close to tying the eight-game win streak that FlyQuest accrued in the first half of the split.
Though Golden Guardians earned themselves an early lead against EG, overzealous play in the mid game allowed their opponents to grab much-needed objectives for themselves. Yet minor hiccups didn’t deter the team, as last week’s “player of the week” Stixxay, alongside further strong performances from the rest of the team, helmed a dominant late game that would allow the streak to survive.
During his “player of the week” interview with Emily Rand, Stixxay explained that reaching this point after multiple downfalls felt incredibly rewarding, but that this is just the beginning of what he expects from himself for the remainder of this year.
“I don’t want people to look at Golden Guardians as, ‘oh nice, we got Golden Guardians in Playoffs, we can beat them,’” Stixxay explained. “I also just want to compete in international competition again.”
Golden Guardians notably made very few changes to its LCS roster heading into the start of the Spring Split. Licorice and River returned in their respective roles, Stixxay was brought back up to the main roster, while Huhi would joined from 100 Thieves and Gori made his LCS debut. Yet in just a few weeks, this team has found the synergy needed to defeat almost the entirety of the field—including teams that were projected to remain at the top of the standings.
The team heads into the sixth week of the 2023 LCS Spring Split with a 7-4 record, sharing hold of third place in the standings with the team they just defeated, Evil Geniuses. The only remaining teams Golden Guardians have to defeat are the first-place FlyQuest and seventh-place Team Liquid, who they will meet in the final weeks of the regular season.
