It was an absolute nightmare start for the reigning LCS champions, but TSM were nothing short of surgical in their upset over Cloud9 today, delivering one of the best games of the split in the process.
It’s one thing for TSM to do what they did, but it’s another entirely to do it against the best League of Legends team in the region—a Cloud9 that thrives on early aggression and stomping opponents out in 30 minutes or less.
TSM played well from behind in what looked like it was going to be another pedal-to-the-metal beatdown from Cloud9. At the 6:30 mark, TSM’s Spica had died three times and was down 55-18 in CS thanks in part to a cheeky early invade from Cloud9. Even the Riot broadcast team was jokingly telling TSM to “go next” and “alt-F4.”
Spica proved tilt-proof, however, and made clean, efficient plays around the map to will his team back to victory, little by little.
This was the third game in a row on the day in which Hecarim was picked and played in a tankier style that went away from his more traditional, carry-oriented Divine Sunderer/Trinity Force mythic item rush. And for Spica especially, being as behind as he was, used this and Hecarim’s crowd control-heavy kit to be an unselfish, self-aware facilitator for his hyper-scaling carries in PowerOfEvil and Lost on Azir and Kai’Sa, respectively.
Cloud9 (11-4) have now lost two games in a row for the first time all split, but have done so to two fellow title contenders in Team Liquid and now TSM. They still own first place and are the only team to have officially clinched a playoff berth as of writing, but the distance in between them and fifth place has narrowed down to just two games. Both TSM and Dignitas are just one game behind them, and Liquid could join the second-place party with a win over Counter Logic Gaming tonight.
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