North America’s best were dealt a telling blow today as Unicorns of Love overthrew TSM for their first loss of the tournament.
It was about as poetic as a game of League of Legends could ever get. TSM controlled the game in every sense of the word. They took all the dragons, they had more towers, both Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg and Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng were reasonably fed, and UOL’s fate looked to be sealed. But despite TSM’s team comp being well-rounded with strong picks, UOL’s team comp was even better. TSM just didn’t realize that until it was too late.
The name of the game for UOL was “stall it out,” and they stalled so damned hard that eventually their Vladimir pocket pick was able to blow up both Doublelift and Bjergsen in two attacks.
They knew exactly how to counter TSM’s strategy, too. They just needed to find the right moment. One of TSM’s favored strategies recently is to send Kevin “Hauntzer” Yarnell around the back to get a nasty flank. That allows the rest of TSM to charge up and clean house. UOL played this strategy like a fiddle.
When Andrei “Xerxe” Dragomir’s Ivern threw down 500 health shields and Fabian “Exileh” Schubert’s Vladimir destroyed the backline all by himself, UOL found their moment. TSM pushed up the bot lane to siege down the inhibitor tower, and Hauntzer tried to flank UOL’s squad through the jungle. As soon as UOL knew Hauntzer was flanking, they charged, and they completely decimated the team before Hauntzer could even reach them.
UOL went onto pull this slippery move again at Baron, where TSM was actually trying to bait them. They were trying to suck UOL in closer to Baron so Hauntzer could again flank from the rear, but that’s exactly what UOL wanted them to do.
UOL delivered the ace at the Baron and went on to win the game, delivering the first loss to TSM of the tournament and restoring hope to the EU LCS.
