The final undefeated team in the 2018 NA LCS Summer Split has fallen at the hands of OpTic Gaming.
The Green Wall took down Echo Fox earlier today, winning a nearly 40-minute game despite starting off rather poorly. The loss bumps Echo Fox, who entered the game with a 2-0 record, into a five-way tie—soon to be a six-way tie following C9 vs. FlyQuest—for the top spot in the standings.
OpTic got off on the proverbial wrong foot to start the game, with jungler Matthew “Akaadian” Higginbotham falling to Echo Fox’s jack-of-all-trades Heo “Huni” Seung-hoon twice in the first 10 minutes. Tristan “PowerOfEvil” Schrage also died after OpTic failed to eliminate Kim “Fenix” Jae-hun in the top lane due to an incredible save by Echo Fox’s support.
The tide seemed to turn pretty heavily following Echo Fox’s massive victory in the top lane, though. PoE got his revenge on Fenix just minutes after dying and the kill was followed up by his team destroying the first turret of the game in the top lane. Huni also got a little too aggressive in the mid lane, leading to his own demise.
While Echo Fox got two towers, OpTic were aggressive in taking the first dragon of the game and killed Huni and his partner-in-crime, Joshua “Dardoch” Hartnett, just moments later. With Huni and Dardoch unable to respond, OpTic quickly picked up Baron and killed Altec shortly after.
One of the most important moments in the game came at the 24-minute mark when an aggressive Echo Fox engaged and lost a teamfight in the top lane near their base, despite killing PowerOfEvil, OpTic’s strongest player.
Echo Fox got the better of OpTic in a fight nearly five minutes later, but the game’s balance was tipping too far in their opponents’ favor to make a comeback. OpTic picked up two more dragons, an additional Baron, and finished off Echo Fox in a teamfight before clinching their second win of the split.
Today’s matchup marked Huni’s third game playing a different position, rolling around mid lane with Dardoch rather than staying in the top lane. In the first two games of the split, he played ADC and jungle in two winning efforts, but this game didn’t go his way.
Both teams will enter Sunday’s set of games at 2-1, with OpTic gearing up for a meeting with FlyQuest and Echo Fox squaring off against Golden Guardians to close out week two of the NA LCS.
