North America continues to struggle at Rift Rivals 2019 after dropping the first two games of the Relay Race to Origen and Fnatic. TSM and Cloud9 both lost their matches today in pretty one-sided affairs.
In TSM’s match against Origen, they were simply outplayed by the superior macro of the European squad. It felt like even though Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg and crew were able to find kills, Origen were adding pressure across the entire map, which prevented TSM from getting any meaningful objectives.
In fact, TSM found their first and only turret at the 26-minute mark, while Origen continued to pile on turret after turret, along with multiple dragons. Many of TSM’s lanes were behind as Origen pushed and pulled them across Summoner’s Rift.
Earlier in the day, Cloud9 struggled mightily against a dominant Fnatic squad without ADC Zachary “Sneaky” Scuderi. As the underdogs, Cloud9 opted in for a unique composition that featured Dennis “Svenskeren” Johnsen’s Gragas and Tristan “Zeyzal” Stidam’s Morgana in the bottom lane, while Robert “Blaber” Huang was sent to the jungle with Nidalee.
But Fnatic had the perfect counter to Cloud9’s shenanigans. By using Karma and Soraka in the bottom lane, they were able to push in Gragas and Morgana. Gabriël “Bwipo” Rau’s Renekton dominated in the top lane and it wasn’t even close for the North American side.
Now, Team Liquid are the last bastion of hope for NA as they head off against G2 Esports in a rematch from the tournament’s group stage. If they lose here, Europe will have effectively proven that EU is truly greater than NA. You can catch all the action on Riot Games’ official Twitch channel.
